The Albino portraits are printed in an edition of 3 and 1 AP. All prints are 100 x 80cm and printed with archival pigment on cotton rag paper.

Click here to read an article by Sean O'Toole on the Albino series.

2. Regina Kambule, South Africa, 2003	7. Vuyiswa Kama, South Africa, 2003	15. Zukiswa Tyami, South Africa, 2003	18. Steven Mohapi, South Africa, 2003 edition sold
21. Thami Mawe, South Africa, 2003	22. Raymond Nteo, South Africa, 2003	24. Lindi Msiza, South Africa, 2003	25. Thembile Mabaso, South Africa, 2003
27. Jeffrey Rasevhechele, South Africa, 2003	28. Kedibone Motshudi, South Africa, 2003	30. Vinkosi Sigwegwe, South Africa, 2002	36. Malebina Mahloko, South Africa, 2003

Sean O'Toole on the Albino series

The etymology of the word albino is inextricably linked to Africa, to the ethnic gaze of early visitors to the Black continent. The word, which describes the inherited condition of melanin deficiency, traces its origins back to Portugal's colonial interests in Africa. First used in 1777, the word was employed to describe white-spotted West Africans encountered by colonial explorers. According to reports, Portuguese explorers were confounded by the apparent existence of two distinct African races, and as a result distinguished between Negroes and Albinos. Thus, it was from the exotic possibilities of otherness, and the flawed vision of the ethnic gaze, that we derive the word albino.

Despite its questionable origins, the word is now commonly utilised throughout the English language. It is used to refer to a grouping of people with inherited conditions in which an altered copy of a gene does not allow the body to produce the usual amounts of a pigment called melanin. Melanin, a colouring agent that has gifted humanity with the notion of race, is a photoprotective pigment that plays a major role in absorbing ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. People with large amounts of melanin in their skin are generally highly resistant to the effects of UV radiation, while, conversely, albinos are highly susceptible to UV radiation, and consequently skin cancer.

In terms of a general typology, there are two main types of albinism. Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) refers to instances where melanin pigment is missing in the skin, hair and eyes, while ocular albinism (OA) describes the condition where the melanin pigment is mainly missing from the eyes, and the skin and hair appear normal. OCA is more common than OA. Approximately one in 17,000 people are born with one of the types of albinism.

One of the chief complaints presented by people with albinism relates to eyesight and visual acuity, their symptoms ranging from extreme far-sightedness or near-sightedness, to astigmatism. Despite a general Hollywood - and indeed pop-cultural - pathology that favours showing albinos as having red eyes, the truth is that the colour range of the albino eye varies from a dull grey to blue to brown. The simple fact is that aside from skin complaints related to UV rays, albinism per se in no ways inhibits the normal physical growth and intellectual development of people born with this condition.

Socially, however, the situation is quite different. The Shona, for example, a distinctive Southeastern African people, refer to albinos as sope, meaning something magical inhabited by powerful evil spirits. A recent increase in the incidence of rape of African albino females by HIV infected males' highlights one particularly aberrant neurosis projected onto the albino body. According to this troubling African fallacy, sex with an albino is said to cure HIV. Less sensationally, though, but just as revealing, Zimbabwean albinos are said to have a life expectancy of 43 years compared to a mean national average of 57 years. Only 29 percent of Zimbabwean albinos live to reach the age of 60 years.

It is the complexities of these unseen facts that subtly frame our reception of Pieter Hugo's photographs, images that when carefully interrogated speak about how class and racial circumstance insinuate themselves into the daily lives of people living with albinism. As such, his enquiry looks beyond the apparent blankness of albinism to present a subtly probing portrait of the world, one in which sameness is underpinned by a marked difference.

The series, which includes participants from countries as diverse as Brazil, Greece and the United Kingdom, was initiated in South Africa, the photographer's country of origin. "The idea started with an earlier body of work titled 'Margin'," Pieter explains. 'Margin' dealt with people living on the peripheries of modern South African society, and included a portrait of an orphaned albino boy stood next to a birdbath outside his orphanage. "I kept returning to this picture," says Pieter. "Something about it captivated me, the role albinism plays in South African society."

A photographic internship at the interdisciplinary school of the arts, Fabrica, allowed Pieter to further explore his interest in the incidence of albinism globally. Thus, while on assignments for the magazine Colors, he managed to meet with and document a large number of individuals living with the condition. Through these encounters, he gained a privileged view of individuals and organisations actively engaged in reshaping a globally prevalent pathology that would views albinism as extraordinary and other.

For the viewer, the simple, declaratory portraits contained in this book present themselves as testimony. These are photographs that celebrate a fragile community whose only difference derives from a slight of genetics. More controversially, these images present a challenge. It is the challenge of seeing different, of relocating the colonising gaze to see something more than simply a blank body onto which we can project our misguided assumptions.

This is not an easy task; it requires a seismic shift in consciousness, and a reformation of language. If we are to suspend our voyeuristic urges, we will of necessity have to step beyond the limits of words, in the process disavowing the traditional meaning of words such as blank. At stake here is our ability to look beyond emptiness and the void, to see meaning defined by a new fullness - of humanity, of being.