Spared the civil wars and venal dictatorships that scar much of Africa, in its own quiet way the Republic is something of an African success story. In 2008, South African photographer Frank Marshall accompanied a South African metal band on a one-gig tour of Gaborone, Botswana’s capital.
“Arriving at the small nightclub venue where they were to play, I was greeted by leather-clad Botswanan metalheads,” recalls Frank. Said metalheads had given themselves names like “Dead Demon Rider,” “Coffinfeeder,” and “Ishmael Phantom Lord.” “As the metal scene in South Africa is mainly white, I was immediately fascinated and thrilled by the small, tight-knit subculture that had grown up in the country.”
Marshall returned a year later to make the Botswana metalheads the focus of his photography degree thesis. Marshall would come to call his project Visions of Renegades. An exhibition of his photographs will be held at Johannesburg’s discerning, avant-garde Brooke Gallery in July.
