Jackie Nickerson: Unseen Farm

Unpublished images from Nickerson’s classic depiction of African agricultural workers

This book presents previously unpublished work from Jackie Nickerson’s acclaimed Farm series. Farm was published by Random House in 2002 and features images made between 1997 and 2001 across Southern Africa. Unseen Farm is an exploration of the people working in agriculture in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, and includes 6x7 medium-format photographs shot on film, Polaroids and contact sheets from the artist’s archive. Comparable to Walker Evans’ and James Agee’s influential account of US rural workers in the mid-1930s, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Nickerson’s vision is celebratory and non-judgmental while aware of photography’s limits in capturing the full depth of its subjects. In Edward K. Owusu-Ansah’s words: Nickerson registers everything about her subjects in minute detail, sincerely and without commentary, allowing them to live through her lens. The result is a display of dignity amidst want, pride in labor and perseverance in spite of limited resources.