Associate Professor Jean Brundrit

Associate Professor – Photography

Jean Brundrit teaches photography as part of the Fine Art courses offered at Michaelis. She co-convenes the undergraduate photographic courses with her colleague, Svea Josephy. Jean teaches students at all levels, from first year to post graduate. Her other student related activities center around student support such as the student mentorship program.

Jean is a visual artist who works with photographic media. She has exhibited in South Africa and contributed to a number of international exhibitions. Her research interests are primarily concerned with exploring identity, specifically lesbian identity and strategies of visual representation within a South African context. In the past few years she has developed a parallel research interest in climate change and the environment. She is interested in how these two areas can be imaged within an art making context and possible relationships between them. In addition she is also interested in how technology images the world and what we might learn from this. In her present research project all three of these areas, identity, environment and the look of technology, intersect.

She is a NRF Rated researcher.

Jean has a mild obsession with pinhole photography.

Conference papers

  • ‘Touching lives: LGBTIQ photographic projects in South Africa’. AAH2017 (Association of Art Historians), Loughborough University, UK. 6-8 April 2017.
  •  ‘At sea with the past: reflections on an artwork’. 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. 14-18 August. Peer reviewed and published proceedings.
  • ‘Process only: Photographs in advocacy for Deaf lesbians’, a conference paper. Wide Angle: Photography as public practice forum, WITS, Johannesburg. March 2011.
  • ‘The Lesbian Lived Experience in South Africa’, a visual presentation. Lesbian Lives XVI: Representations of the Lesbian in Art, Culture and the Media. 13-14 February 2009, Women’s Studies Centre, School of Social Justice, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

Chapters in books

  • Brundrit, J. ‘Speaking out towards full citizenship: strategies of representing complex lesbian identities through photovoice projects in South Africa.’ In Home/Land: Women, Citizenship, Photographies. Edited by Marion Arnold and Marsha Meskimmon. Liverpool University Press. July 2016.
  • Brundrit, J; Ciurysek, S and Mangalanayagam, N. ‘Loughborough International Artists’ Residency: Three responses to place’. In Home/Land: Women, Citizenship, Photographies. Edited by Marion Arnold and Marsha Meskimmon. Liverpool University Press. July 2016.
  • Contribution about teaching photography appearing in Photography 4.0: A teaching guide for the 21st Century: Educators Share Thoughts and Assignments Edited by Michelle Bogre. Focal Press, New York and London. 2014.
  • Distiller, N and Brundrit, J. ‘ M/Other Families: Some Introductory Comments to the Project’ in Lubbe-De Beer, C and Marnell, J. (eds.). Home Affairs: Rethinking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Families in South Africa. Johannesburg: Fanele. 2013.

Exhibitions:

  • ‘Over the horizon’, a solo exhibition at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery, Cape Town. 2 June – 8 July 2021.
  • ‘City of Cape Town: official queer space’ (2001) curated onto a group exhibition – Ph♀tographes- of thirteen women photographers in Le Cellier, Reims, France. The exhibition was curated by Alain Collard and the photographic organisation La salle d’attente. 5 May – 29 July 2018. Photographers included Azadeh Akhlaghi, Elina Brotherus, Melanie Jane Frey, Carolle Benitah, Shadi Ghadirian, Leila Alaoui, Delphine Balley, Laurence Geai, Camille Gharbi, Wilma Hurskainen, Dorothea Lange and Helene Virion.
  • ‘Contemplation’ is part of a group, photographic exhibition celebrating 40 years of international womens days. ‘Journee des Femmes: Le pouvoir en partage (Womens day: the power and sharing)’, curated by the photographic association, La salle d’attente, of collaged photographs on the street, 3 Rue Theodore Dubois (8 March 2017) and second floor of Galeries Lafayette (1-8 March 2017), Reims, France.
  • ‘Shifting Perspectives’ is a diptych colour photograph inkjet printed on cotton paper. Exhibited as part of a group exhibition, ‘International contemporary art exhibition 2016’ at Art gallery Le Logge, Assisi, Italy. 1 – 8 December  2016.
  • ‘No Place’, a solo exhibition at the Wits Anthropology Museum, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 4 May – 3 June 2016. A PDF of the exhibition catalogue is available here.
  • ‘Big Sea’ Book-form artwork. 96 page 21.8 x 15.5 cm. Litho printed, in ‘HOME/LAND’. A three person exhibition with Sarah Ciurysek (Canada), Nina Mangalanayagam (Sweden and Sri Lanka). S’eliyemetaxwtexw Art Gallery, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, Canada. 27 October 2015 – 16 November 2015.
  • ‘Out of Site’, a solo exhibition at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town. 26 August – 19 September 2013.
  • ‘At Sea’, a commissioned artwork exhibited on a billboard in the town of Loughborough, UK. Radar, Loughborough University Arts, Loughborough, UK. 12-25 November 2012.
  • ‘Nature Study’, a solo exhibition at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town. 8 August – 2 September 2011.