BUILDING A DEMOCRACY: Buckland, married to an architect herself and therefore familiar with the process of architectural design, is always mindful of the ultimate function of buildings under construction. Her photographs of the building process of the new South African Constitutional Court go deeper than mere superficial documentation by focusing, often in a metaphorical way, on elements of the building that make clear its tarnished past and memories but, simultaneously, its ability to transcend all of this to become a symbol of hope for all South Africans. Buckland’s images succeed on other levels too. She has developed a unique ability to convey a sense of compassion in her work that, strangely, is equally evident regardless of whether it is her son she is photographing, or our country’s most famous building. FACES OF CONSTRUCTION: A visionary donor employed experts from around the country specialising in sustainable building methods to build a primary school in an urban environment deficient in social infrastructure. Seven Fountains Primary, Shayamoya, Kokstad, Northern Cape. The challenge was to create a sustainable building with long-term advantages for national & global issues such as climate change and resource depletion. The immediate and direct benefits are experienced by poor and under-resourced communities. The social landscape has subsequently shifted for the better since the school took occupation. One direct benefit is a newly formed women’s co-op registered with the Department of Trade and Industry, where learner’s mothers have learnt adobe brick-making skills. The vision and design principles of this school is now recognised as a national model. Buckland’s portraits here speak of a deliberate strategy intended to remind the viewer of the less than glamorous aspects involved in day to day tasks in challenging environments. These portraits recognise a handful of individuals from Shayamoya township, notably construction builders and schoolteachers. Buckland returned to this community regularly working between the old school (which was originally a disused men’s compound) to the new school building site. Buckland does not pose her subjects but seeks to portray them as honestly as possible – in their building garb or in classrooms, against a backdrop of their working environment – the sites on which they work. Buckland’s portraits subtly allude to the contrasts between opulent public buildings where no expense has been spared, and the anonymity of the rural builders who make innovative projects possible. ‘GRAND’ GRANDMOTHERS OF SHAYAMOYA: The word grandmother has taken the meaning of ‘grand’ to extraordinary unexpected levels for many elderly women living in South Africa. This new parenting mode is in response to the harrowing AIDS/HIV pandemic in the country. Most grandmothers have had little time to grieve the loss of their own children before they take on the new responsibility of caring for their grandchildren. Grandmothers are at the stage in their lives when they should be cared for. WHERE’S NIKKI?: Buckland gained esteem when she was nominated for the prestigious Daimler Chrysler Award for Creative Photography for her photographic installation, “Where’s Nikki”, a frank exploration of the lived experience, marginalisation and stigma associated with rearing a disabled child. Herself, a mother of a challenged child, Nikki, she offers a rare insight into the gamut of fragile human experience around parenting a disabled child. The large-scale prints, 4metres high by 1.27 metres wide, serve as an additional voice to compensate for the somewhat, silent and secret world of disability. The images use psychoanalysis as a basic structure to construct each family’s narrative, each print represents a family’s particular emotional stage - shock, grief and loss, rage, confusion, relief, acceptance and hope.