Biddy Partridge

Biddy was there on 18th April 1980 to celebrate independence with the people of Zimbabwe at the end of the Zimbabwean War of Liberation. In 1980, Biddy began work on a seminal book, None but Ourselves: The media and the masses in the making of Zimbabwe, with Julie Frederikse. Travelling in Zimbabwe she documented life in the villages, and key political moments.

Biddy’s photos in this exhibition are of a remote church mission in the rural area of Berejena, taken during the Zimbabwean liberation struggle. The bullet holes either side of the cross at the altar show the persistence of the priests, nuns and congregations of Berejena.

“Friends of Zimbabweans, my heart is aflame with love for you. I write this letter Brothers and Sisters, we really love and respect you. You are real Comrades, good friend in joy and sorrow... but you have stood firm like real Christian soldiers, vanguards of justice. IT’S REALLY WONDERFUL! - A MAN, STILL MORE WONDERFUL A WOMAN, FROM A FOREIGN COUNTRY GIVING HER LIFE FOR DEMONSTRATING REAL LOVE. We are fighting against evil not colour... This worries us much. Yours in The Struggle - Zanu Comrades (Hondo) (Struggle)”.

Biddy writes about her work that, “Photography for me shares a lot with music - patterns and rhythms, line and form, melody and colour. In juxtaposing images - as in putting music or musicians together - it’s often then that the chemistry begins, the song begins. And I like to encourage the eye to see and the ear to hear the beauty in the commonplace, in the detail, in what we often overlook.”