First UK Exhibition of Alice Mann’s Award-Winning Drummies Series – Featuring Unseen Images

Celebrated South African photographer Alice Mann unveils the first UK exhibition of Drummies – her seminal, Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize-winning series of South African female drum majorette teams.

Now based in London, Mann presents her first London solo exhibition at David Hill Gallery in September, featuring previously unseen photographs from the series.

Alice spent four years photographing girls in Western Cape and Gauteng schools. Her joyful portraits capture the strength, confidence, and pride that is vital in communities where opportunities for young women are severely limited. Alice explains, “Drummies is part of my ongoing work exploring notions of femininity and empowerment in modern society.”

The New Yorker praised Mann, writing “Drummies retrofits the male-dominated genre of flashy sports photography to capture girls who are mostly from low-income families in the townships.”

“What stands out is the confidence in gaze and posture of the girls photographed. This can be seen across all age groups and speaks as much to the girls’ personalities as it does to how Mann succeeds in building a relationship with the people she photographs.” – Christine Eyene, Art Critic

“There are so many images coming from a particular viewpoint, which is often a male, Eurocentric, westernised viewpoint – it’s important that we make this broader and more inclusive.” – Alice Mann

In 2018, when Mann was just 27 years old, Drummies won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Mann had entered four images from Drummies, which led to the first time a series had won in the prize’s history. As a result, all four winning images were exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, they then won the Grand Prix of the Jury for photography at Hyères in 2019, and Alice’s Drummies were nominated for the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards and consequently exhibited at Somerset House.

From 19 September, the David Hill Gallery presents the first opportunity to see Drummies exhibited in the UK and includes previously unseen images from the series. Produced in association with Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg.