Buyaphi University: Taking free education to the streets of Gauteng

“Healing is a continuous process – we had that in mind when we put out those images,” says the founder of Buyaphi University, Buyaphi Mdledle.

The 53-year-old veteran photographer is gesturing towards a photo exhibition he and a group of his students put up outside a shop that was looted and vandalised during the July unrest, which affected parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year.

What began as a spur-of-the moment project seven years ago with curious neighbourhood children, has culminated in a sort of permanent art installation that also serves as a place of “free learning and thinking” for local youth, international and domestic visitors. It offers a brightly coloured oasis for the eye in the otherwise bland and dusty surroundings typical of Gauteng township topography.

Buyaphi’s first students made an exhibition of his work by hanging selected photos on a tree in the hopes of starting a conversation with passersby. The resounding message in all his efforts to teach others is that all learning begins with curiosity.

Situated behind the local stadium in Klipspruit, Soweto, Buyaphi University is essentially an open passage between the local park and Buyaphi’s mother’s house, where he grew up observing the fast-paced lives of passersby in the rising tension that was 1980s Soweto.

The university serves as a statement on the age-old art of passing on stories between generations as the oldest form of education. It was already a gathering place for all manner of visitors who rested on the adorned tree trunk to chew the fat with Buyaphi – only now the gatherings are curated experiences.

“I’m from Everton, but this house has always been here – Indlu kamama (my mother’s house). I grew up in Everton with my grandmother. Often when mothers went to work in Johannesburg, one would be left behind with the grandmother. I am that trope,” he explains.

“I was always coming to this house to visit my mother on some weekends and holidays. Hence, I have this connection with the community and hence the need to engage create engagement in the community. I ended up completing my high school education here at Musi High School.”

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Anyone is welcome here without appointment to observe whatever exhibition is currently on display and have access to the bohemian-style makeshift library he has fashioned out of his mother’s backroom, which opens up onto the space which comprises the university’s main area.

The irony of his arrangement is not lost on him and in fact, he sees it as a sort of challenge to ideas around space, land and the use of these. Formal education has walls and a ceiling, but Buyaphi University is in the open space and accessible to all.

He has invited visitors from as far afield as The Netherlands and Germany to hold lectures or attend one of his. Local community leaders and artists routinely teach school children and whoever is around to listen about whatever their area of specialisation is.

Buyaphi runs several courses a year for local youth to learn about photography, sometimes within the auspices of the local schools.

A group of his students have completed a project on healing from violence. He asked his students to connect with the roots of violence by speaking to loved ones at home and in their personal surroundings.

“But how do you say kids must go and photograph violence because initially the project was about gender-based violence,” he thinks out loud.

“How do you say they must go and sniff for violence in their homes when violence is in the air? It exists in unexpected forms. That is why it was critical that they engage and re-engage with their homes and their people with the hope of sparking conversation.”

A long-time lecturer at The Market Photo Workshop, a school for disadvantaged photography students in Johannesburg, Buyaphi often collaborates with the school on projects at his own institution. He is well known among his past students and colleagues as a sharp-tongued maverick who likes to challenge the obvious.

Buyaphi has lectured in various institutions including City Varsity in Cape Town and late veteran photojournalist Alf Khumalo’s school in Diepkloof, where he was one of the first facilitators.

“I also had a spell at Wits teaching there and for the longest time I was at the Market Workshop where I have had opportunities to do short stints teaching in other institutions,” he recalls.

The career lecturer has also taught courses in Lupane State University in Zimbabwe and ran a short course in Amsterdam, focusing on photographing immigrants.

“All these rich experiences working with people from all over the world, these are people whose origins have been disrupted.” he says describing the Amsterdam experience.

And so, with all that he has learned in his travels and chance encounters, Buyaphi set up a permanent monument to his love for teaching and connecting through photography. He proudly gestures to the painted sign above his door that reads “Buyaphi University”.

The main area consists of an array of chairs, and the walls are adorned with mosaic art. Faded prints from past exhibitions peek behind fresh prints on the populated walls. There are sizeable pot plants lining the mosaic wall.

Connected to his home’s front lawn is the lawn now dedicated to recently late photographer Santu Mofokeng, with an exhibition of his work and a crude inscription which simply reads “Santu Mokokeng’s Wall”.

simnikiweh@citizen.co.za