‘Brothers, Prieska, South Africa’ by Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS
“Being a photographer,” Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS believes, “is like being given the ultimate backstage pass to real life.
“It gives you an excuse to make friends with people, it gives you an excuse to enter people’s homes, lives, stories, sit at their table. And it’s our responsibility to make work, I think, that builds bridges.”
The Irish-born photographer, awarded an Honorary Fellowship in the latest Royal Photographic Society Awards, is good at building bridges. Her work takes difficult, contentious, even painful subjects and finds a way into them through images. Subjects such as Orania in South Africa, the location of her current project – a place for Afrikaners only, even though it is now some three decades after the end of apartheid.
“I am white so I’m allowed in, in a way,” Adam points out. “They’ll bend the rules for me even though I’m not Afrikaner, I can’t speak Afrikaans. But Irish is good for them because Irishmen fought on the side of the Afrikaners, on behalf of the Boer, against the British. So, they’re totally cool with the Irish and they have an Irish monument in Orania.”
‘George, Orania, South Africa’ by Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS
This project is in line with Adam’s taste for extremes. In the past she has travelled to the remote Pitcairn island in the Pacific and lived for three months among a suspicious population. Her thwarted attempt to go into space as part of the first civilian space flight led to Rhi-Entry, her exploration of utopian ideas of space travel and her own attempt to re-enter normal life in the wake of the cancelled mission.
The politics of utopias are a constant with her, then, and Orania is just the latest example of that.
‘Gabriel, Orania, South Africa’ by Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS
Her own beliefs are not relevant in such projects, she says. It is about not putting up walls but being open to those who ideologically she might disagree with.
“A lot of people are driven there by things in the outside world, not necessarily pulled there by their ideology,” she says. “People are formed by their own experiences, so, often, if you can find the hurt point in someone they’ll change their mind.
“If you can identify that thing and speak to that part, they will be much more open.”
And photography allows that to happen, she adds.
‘Race track, Orania, South Africa’ by Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS
“If you make a political work, what you are trying to do is illuminate a story in a more in-depth way.
“And images are less direct than words. You can allow myriad interpretations of that same image. You can provide waypoints and guides and help people unlock the story, but a lot of it is up to the individual who is experiencing it. You can curate it in a certain way, but there will always be different reads.
“I think that’s the beauty of an image – the myriad interpretations. They are like mirrors of our time.”
See more work by Rhiannon Adam HonFRPS in the January-March 2026 edition of the RPS Journal, a celebration of the Royal Photographic Society Awards.
The RPS Journal is available exclusively to members. Join the RPS to receive our award-winning magazine and read more inspiring features. Explore full member benefits here.