I am a social documentary photographer but have also worked on many children’s books. From the moment I first encountered the Zipzap Circus, it immediately captured my attention. It is a circus with a social conscience that began in 1991 as a swing on a tree in a township in Cape Town, a dream of two Trapeze Artists, a South African Brent van Rensburg and his French wife Laurence Esteve .They started a free circus school for children of diverse backgrounds , to teach them trapeze, juggling, other circus skills and learn trust , self-confidence, teamwork, discipline, and most of all, fun. In 20 years, it has grown to a circus school in a permanent tent with many outreach programmes, one for HIV positive children and another which aims to rehabilitate street children.
I want to continue documenting their work, their shows, and their outreach programmes.