Mixedness is my Mythology, the first monograph by South African–Dutch photographer Farren van Wyk, explores themes of identity, representation and personal agency.

Juxtaposing the artist’s lived experience in the Netherlands with her inherited history as a native of post-apartheid South Africa, van Wyk navigates the space where personal narratives intersect with broader histories of representation, colonialism and power, ultimately producing a body of work that is both deeply intimate and widely resonant.

Along with photographs of her family tending to their land or engaged in tender acts of care, van Wyk develops her own idiosyncratic iconography, examining the construction of a hybrid identity shaped by migration, diaspora and cultural intersectionality. Bringing together South African, Dutch, African American, and classical European cultural references, multiple lineages coexist within her images, resisting fixed definitions and singular origins.

By building this personal mythology, rooted in family history, iconic imagery, and reappropriated cultural symbols, van Wyk asserts her visual sovereignty, embracing complexity and nuance while reclaiming the right to self-definition.

Farren van Wyk (1993) is a South African and Dutch photographer and educator. She holds a BA in Photography and an MA in Cultural and Visual Anthropology. Her research-based work centres around decolonial methods or historical and cultural misrepresentation of people of colour. Van Wyk is a member of the African Photojournalist Association with World Press Photo and Black Women Photographers. 

Essay by Taous Dahmani
Softcover
Tritone Offset
116 Pages
9.25” x 11.25”
Swiss Bound
ISBN: 978-90-836127-6-8
Co-pubished with FW:Books

Mixedness is my Mythology is co-published on the occasion of van Wyk’s first solo museum exhibition of the same name at the Fotomuseum, in The Hague, Netherlands.