throw the bones
Concept
Throw the Bones takes its title from ukubhula, the Southern African divinatory practice in which a sangoma casts bones, shells, and other objects to be read as a configuration not a prediction, but a message from the ancestors revealed through where things fall. Gawie Joubert and Vanessa Snyders translated that logic into a set: a room-scale paper environment in which the figures within it become part of the cast, the space itself the reading.
Process
The set was co-designed and co-fabricated by Joubert and Snyders in the living room of Joubert's Johannesburg home, working as a two-person team to a shoot deadline. The project was self-produced with no budget; the black paper was sponsored by Papersmith & Son who supplied the full quantity needed for the build.
concept sketch
day 2
day 5
day 6
day 7
starting to look like a set
day 9
final set
Final Editorial
The shoot took place inside the completed set, with models arranged as figures within the configuration rather than posed against it. Each composition reads as a cast bodies, paper forms, and shadow falling into a relationship that can be looked at and interpreted. The editorial is one in which the set is the conceptual subject; the clothing and the figures move through it.
Credits
Concept — Gawie Joubert & Vanessa Snyders
Set design & fabrication — Gawie Joubert & Vanessa Snyders
Photography — JP Hanekom
Styling — Kyle Boshoff
Paper sponsor — Papersmith & Son