SOUTH AFRICA VIA DOLOROSA

ELISABETH OHLSON WALLIN

10th September – 7th November

Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin has been a photographer since 1980, and her breakthrough came in 1998 with the exhibition Ecce Homo, about Christ and homosexuals. Since then she has made an exhibition about blind people, another about “the whore”, and now one about plague victims. South Africa Via Dolorosa portrays the Aids disaster in South Africa.

Via Dolorosa is Latin for “the way of sorrows” and denotes the path which Jesus had to walk, from the palace of Pontius Pilate, where he had been sentenced to death, through the alleyways of Jerusalem to Golgotha, the place of execution.

The practice of devotions at fourteen or fifteen Stations of the Cross lives on, especially in Roman Catholic churches, and it is to this ancient tradition that Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin alludes in her South Africa Via Dolorosa.

The exhibition comprises fifteen “stations”, depicting suffering, endeavour and love in a South Africa afflicted with HIV and Aids. We are invited to follow in the footsteps of our fellow-human beings along South Africa’s own Via Dolorosa.