Paul Konings

Paul Konings was born in Tokoroa, New Zealand in 1958. Konings came to South Africa in 1975 to study at the Michaelis School of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town. While in Cape Town, he worked as a freelance graphic artist and photographer during the 1980s. Konings produced an important collection of social documentary photographs of people in District Six, Cape Town. He wrote about these photographs, “It is very difficult to explain this situation from the outside. All these photographs represent people, friends of mine in District Six. They now live on the Cape Flats (a desert-like area in northern Cape Town). They were violently forcibly removed as a result of the legislation by the white government.” (Koeve and Besserer, 1983, 80)

In 1984 a selection of Konings’ photographs were published in Don Pinnock’s book, The Brotherhoods: Street Gangs and State Controls. His photographs were also published in Estate Wines of Southern Africa (1976). Konings contributed images to the “Culture and Resistance Festival” held in Gaborone, Botswana in 1982 as well as to the 1983book and exhibition by  Dieter Koeve and Tim Besserer entitled Nichts Wird Uns Trennen (Nothing will separate us) produced in Bern, Switzerland.

Konings currently lives in New Zealand and does freelance design for marketing communications including branding and advertising for companies.