The Actionists
- Thom Pierce
- 13 hours ago
- 4 min read
A deep-dive into the motivations, production and advocacy of my ongoing project to celebrate the unsung heroes creating positive change around South Africa.
The Foundations
I wanted to make a positive project that celebrated everyday people who were striving to make a change in their communities. It felt important to counter the negative news cycle that we often get stuck in. I also wanted to find the stories for myself and my children, to counter the narrative that nothing is being done in South Africa.
In order to create something that made sense it needed to have some rules.
1. Each actionist must be based in South Africa.
2. The story must revolve around a single protagonist (or two at the most).
3. They must be identifying problems and providing generous solutions.
4. Their motivation must be clearly for the benefit of others.
I did not want the activism to be grand, flashy or widely publicised in the past. There felt like there was something important about showcasing the small, achievable gestures that often go untold, but combine to create lasting change.
As I wanted it to be an ongoing project, I aimed to find one person a week; photograph and interview them, write up their story and publish it.
My dream was to be a mouthpiece for their activism, telling their unique story and inspiring others to do something in their own community.
I came to this idea through meeting incredible activists like Nonhle (below) from Xolobeni, and profiling her for my project "The Defenders".
The Content
A single portrait can do so much, and I didn't want to complicate the project with endless amounts of content. The idea was to engage and motivate others to action, not to bore them with every detail. Each Actionist just needed a hero shot and a short story.
The portraits needed to be descriptive, humanising and eye-catching, so that the audience would feel an affinity for the person and be immediately interested in what it is that they do. As always I wanted the person to be at the forefront of the image.
Each portrait needed to stand alone as it's only story whilst also working together as a body of work. For this reason, they are all shot in landscape orientation, with a similar composition and lighting setup. With each image I set out to include a background that described their work or personality.
The stories came from short conversations that I had with each person and were deliberately written to be simple and accessible. It was important not to glorify the work to the extent that it would distance the audience but rather present it as an achievable human endeavour that is motivated through love and generosity.
The written stories all needed to be around 300 words. Just enough to give the important details with some texture and colour, but not enough to bore. I wanted the audience to know just enough that they were motivated to find out more.
The Advocacy
The joy of portrait photography is that, once it is made, it can be used in so many ways for a long time to come.
As each story stood alone as an interesting profile, I approached the Daily Maverick to see if they wanted to publish the stories on a regular basis as a series.
They agreed but I deliberately did not ask them for payment. I wanted to give the stories away to anyone who wanted to print them and I did not want anyone to have ownership or exclusivity over the content.
This was my way of giving back, to make this project from my own pocket and be able to publish it everywhere and anywhere without restriction.
The stories were published in the Daily Maverick for a year between 2023 and 2024, reaching a huge number of readers who were motivated to get involved and support The Actionists from the stories that resonated with them.
An online database of the stories was created and hosted on my website, where Actionists could be searched for and filtered by their location and the type of work they were doing.
A series of exhibitions followed, through Workshop 17 ( in their shared workspaces around the country), at Victoria Yards in Johannesburg and at the Gibbs Business School.
From the moment I started publishing The Actionists I received phone calls and emails from radio stations, magazines and members of the public wanting to contact the people in my stories.
It soon occurred to me that the greatest activism I could do with this work was to create a database, publicise the stories and connect The Actionists with the people who needed them.
By putting the work out in as many places as possible and leading everyone back to the database on my website, I can provide a service that truly benefits both The Actionists and the audience.
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