Pippa Hetherington Photographic Artist | Visual Storyteller | Curator

Pippa Hetherington (1971 - ) is a South African photographic artist with a deeply rooted lens-based practice spanning over two decades. Working at the intersection of fine art and documentary photography, her work navigates post-colonial identity, inherited memory, and the fragmented nature of personal and collective histories. She explores themes of erasure, grief, and belonging with quiet intensity.

Her art practice extends beyond the frame, incorporating textiles and natural clay pigments to create layered, tactile works that echo the land and bodies they speak from. These material gestures act as both extensions and disruptions of the photographic image, evoking what cannot be seen but is always felt - what remains, stains, or fades. To follow her art process https://www.instagram.com/pippa_hetherington_studio/

Portraiture forms one of the main facets of her practice: each image is the result of an intimate, temporal exchange between photographer and subject, shaped by empathy, trust, and time. These moments yield photographs that are emotionally resonant and psychologically attuned, reflecting a shared inner terrain.

Hetherington’s visual language also informs her collaborations with NGOs, development agencies, and international publications. Across assignments in twelve African countries and years based in New York City, she has used photography as a means to amplify voices at the intersection of social justice, environmental resilience, and grassroots development.

Now based in the UK, she continues to develop a multidisciplinary practice grounded in photography but expanded by material experimentation. She holds an MFA from the ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies (New York, 2019). Her work is held in several public and private collections and has been recognised by international juries, including shortlists for the Contemporary African Photography Prize in 2021 and 2022.

EXHIBITIONS
2025

• Soft Power: Lives Told Through Textiles, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK – group show

2023

• Inherited, Gallery Bonne Espérance, Paris, France – solo show
• In Search of the Birds of the Sea, Spier Wine Farm, Stellenbosch, South Africa – group show
• Ground to Remember, LagosPhoto Festival, Lagos, Nigeria – group show

Recent Curatorial & Artistic Projects

• /ˈwɔːtə(r)/, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa – curator
• Interlaced, Spier Arts Trust, Union House, Cape Town – solo show
• Umaf’ evuka, nje ngenyanga / Dying and Rising as the Moon Does, Keiskamma Art Project Retrospective, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg – curator

Other Exhibitions

• Excavation, Sisonke Gallery, Cape Town – solo show
• Into the Blaze, The Fourth Gallery, Cape Town – group show
• Rapid Response Restitution, LagosPhoto20, Nigeria – group show
• Cuttings 1820–2020, GFI Gallery, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), South Africa – lead artist, collaborative exhibition
• In your place, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town – group show + curator
• Social Photography VII, Carriage Trade Gallery, Manhattan, New York – group show
• With Pleasure, Baxter Street & Camera Club, New York – group show
• No Simple Seasons, ICP School, New York – group show
• The Rest is Memory, ICP-LIC Studios, Queens, New York – solo show
• Visual AIDS: Changing Narratives, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa – group show
• The Sister Series, The Clothing Bank, Vineyard Hotel, Cape Town – solo show
• Stories from Rural SA, Washington, D.C., USA – solo show
• Our Stories, BEHIND THE FACES, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg – solo show
• Visions of Africa, Africa Day, Ireland – group show
• Festival of the World Museum, Southbank Centre, London, UK – group show
• Burning Bright, Durban, South Africa – solo show
• Newborns, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town – solo show
• Ansisters, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg – group show

EDUCATION

• MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies, ICP-Bard, New York, 2019 (with distinction)

SELECTED CLIENTS

• Marie Claire, FairLady, Real Simple, House and Leisure, Leadership Magazine, WWF-SA, Visual AIDS, The Hart Island Project, Keiskamma Art Project, SMARTSTART, The Clothing
• Bank, Spier Arts Trust, UNDP, Desmond Tutu Footprints of Legends, Cape Nature, Baby Sense, Africa Ignite, GIZ, Global Water Partnership, Bushfire Festival, Lake of Stars,
• Discovery Health, RTL Television, 25:40, MidasEarthcote, Namibian Dept of Environmental Affairs, Telecom TV, Groote Schuur Newborns Trust, Environment Agency, 1 Giant Leap.

BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

• Reading the Thread: Cloth and Communication, ed. Lesley Millar & Alice Kettle
• Blueprint Mothers (cyanotype collection)
• The Rest is Memory (MFA thesis book)
• June 16th 2016–2030, youth-focused documentary series
• Burning Bright, portraits of KwaZulu-Natal women
• BabySense, documentary photography on early motherhood

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

• 2019–present: Visual artist, curator, educator (SA & UK)
• 2015–2017: Photojournalist, communications specialist
• 2003–2014: Freelance photographer, producer, campaign/project/communications manager
• 2000–2003: Producer/director/editor, Nick Chevallier Productions
• 1994–2000: The Television Company, Johannesburg – post-production & production

COLLECTIONS

• Spier Art Collection
• M&C Saatchi Abel Contemporary Art Collection
• Moors Permanent Collection