Social documentary and personal investigations in contemporary South African photography: Tracey Derrick’s “One in Nine” series

A shell of white gauze floats against a split background in Tracey Derrick’s (2009) photograph, Inhabit – Habergeon – middle English, piece of armour to protect the neck and chest (Inhabit), at once declarative and materially frail. The shadowed wall propels the calcified gauze towards the viewer, as its lithe body hovers above the vertical divide that separates light from dark. The gauze levitates over the black and

white verge, assisted through a thin suspension of fishing line, and its position apart from this edge may be read as a passage missed or overcome.