Yasser Booley

Yasser Booley
from Cape Town got his camera at the age of 17 as a gift from his father. He has been autodidact ever since, using the lense as a means to connect people of the most diverse backgrounds. Capturing their casual procedures and their festive moments alike, his skill and ambition to convey the beauty in each motion has become more mature as he continued to observe.
2003 he launched his first solo exhibition, "Voices from the Summit", consisting of ten strong impressions of the protest march (on the occasion of) the world summit for sustainable development, in which twelve thousand people walked from Alexandria township to Sandton city Johannesburg. The images reflect the (agitated) atmosphere of the eight hour march in the crisp and vivid fashion (typical) for Yasser`s work.
"Afrikuvìka", a project taking place in Reykjavìk, capital of Iceland, became the location for his second exhibition. The week long event consisted of photo exhibitions , live music, and dance performances , debates and discussions. Sponsored by the EU in connection with a program for volunteers from Europe who had been to Africa, the intention was to create awareness, (provide) authentic perspectives and balance out misperceptions that cloud Africa in a haze of apathy.
Yasser`s contribution consisted of color and black and white pictures he had taken on a four week trip to Mozambique the previous year.
Later that same year he participated in an artist exchange programme with Pro-Helvetia , the Swiss Arts Council , staying in the "ghetto`s" of zurich for 3 months . It is from this series of photographs that the portrait picture of the children of refugees and assylum seekers is taken .

In 2005 and back in South Africa, the "Camissa Collective" formed the basis for his third exhibition. The collective was created by a group of young up and coming photographers who saw the need and recognised the opportunity to collectively exhibit their work in various locations in and around Cape Town . Beginning as an idea amongst friends , mopp (month of peoples photography ) started becoming a reality as more and more people showed commitment to the idea of creating a platform to show the work of young south african photographers based in cape town . The name of the first project , mopp , was inspired by a pre-existing exibition called cape town month of photography ( mop). Lacking the submission fee for the exhibition that did not reflect a view of Cape Town held by members of the collective , they added an extra p and called their exhibition month of people`s photography , pioneering the concept of "fringe" and guerilla marketing simultaneously .
A week before the launch of the exhibition , sitting on the brick paving in the shade of one of the many trees lining st.georges street mall , the mission satement was formulated :
“Through the use of creative strategy, collective resources & determination we set out to build an independent movement. MOPP is an event to showcase the work of up and coming young photographers.”

As a collective there were certain principles that united us in a common goal . One of principles is the view that photography is , and should be used as a tool for social change . Another is that in the South Africa , a land of of incredible beauty and sometimes even more incredible contrasts , gap between those who have and those who dont lead us to believe that the stuggle , for a large majority continues . Through photography we can contribute to awareness , and through awareness we hope to stimulate dialogue and hopefully change .We claim ourselves form our circumstances when we affect our environment , interacting with it on different levels of exchange .

The work of the Camissa Collective can be seen at the Uninhabited Territories exhibition wich forms part of the Next Wave festival after the Common Wealth Games in Melbourne -Australia in March 2006 .