Hasan and Husain Essop will work at the Thami Mnyele Foundation residency the months September, October and November 2011.

The Essop brothers are at the moment taking part in the exibition "Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography" at the V&A in London until Sun 17 July 2011. (info:http://vimeo.com/22071316)
In February they had their solo exhibition "HALAAL ART" at the Goodman Gallery in South Africa (more info:http://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/hasanhusainessop).

The Essop brothers won the Thami Mnyele Foundation Prize, announced at the Dak'Art Biennale 2010. The Prize is to take part to the Thami Mnyele Foundation Residency program September-October-November 2011.

The Essops are twin brothers based in Cape Town who create staged photographs depicting aspects of local Muslim life. In the series Halaal Art they show the preparation and serving of a Halaal meal as a ritual process of purification and cleansing.

Each scene is performed for the camera and later digitally reconstructed. In Islam, depicting the figure is controversial or prohibited and the artists are careful about limiting figural representation to their own bodies, for which they alone assume responsibility. Their work refers to the potential contradictions between modernity and tradition, Islam and the West, and the space that young Muslim men occupy and negotiate in a secular environment.

' "Halaal Art" was something that started during our trip to Cuba. It was about the way we were living, the challenges we faced as Muslims in a country that didn't have Islam. It started with finding meat, a lamb, and sacrificing it Halaal; making something that's impure, pure for your body to eat. We tried to explore that: what does that mean? We take where our food comes from so for granted. We went to the abattoir in Cape Town where we get our Halaal meat and we shot in a kind of alley, to show the abundance of nutrition here. It is horrific to some extent, but it is also a beautiful ritual if you understand it and you respect it and you respect the animal…These photographs are tricky because they take a lot of planning. At the scene we set up the tripod. I will test the light, see how the light is working. I will look at Husain and say, 'do you like this angle?' and he's like, 'maybe you shift it like this' and we have that discussion. This happens so quickly you know, because that's the beauty of the work, it has to happen quickly, the light changes all the time and you want to stay true to what you are photographing and then he will do a series of acts [which] I will photograph.'

Hasan and Husain Essop, interviewed by Tamar Garb, South Africa 2010