Finalists – Prix Picto de la Mode 2025 : Jack Markovitz

Jack Markovitz is a director and photographer based in Johannesburg, a creator who captures the raw essence of his surroundings and subjects. His work is built on deep trust and total immersion in the realities he documents, going beyond simple representation to capture the soul of the moments he portrays. Through projects like “Dunusa”, he explores powerful themes such as community, chaos, and resilience in the face of adversity. His unique perspective on Johannesburg’s thrifting market transforms this space into a place where stories of survival, transformation, and identity intersect.

Jack Markovitz is a director and photographer based in Johannesburg. His work is built on a deep trust between him and his subjects, with an aim to create honest, archival depictions of the world as he sees it. His award-winning films and photographs have shown in Berlin, Barcelona, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Netherlands, New York, Paris and Seoul.

His music video for Shanti Cullis, PRIMATE, a cult classic in Johannesburg, was shown in London, Paris and New York with TWIST Mag. YAHOO BOY, a film Markovitz co-wrote, screened at MoMA when it was nominated for an AICP Award for Best Web Film. His documentary DARK SILENCE ON SPORTS AVENUE screened in Cannes when it was nominated for a Young Director Award for Best Documentary. His fashion documentary DUNUSA: LIFE OF A GARMENT first exhibited in Berlin at gallery/museum Radialsystem. The film went on to screen in Barcelona, Spain with Fede Arthouse as well as showing in Maastricht, Netherlands at Fashionclash Festival and in Mexico City. The project editorially debuted on Nataal and then went on to be featured by SHOWstudio in their seasonal Fashion Film Review.

His documentary DEADSTOCK debuted in exhibition at Radialsystem Berlin. The film went on to screen in London at DoBeDo Projects and in Paris at Dover Street Market Paris. Markovitz directed a film for COLDPLAY as a part of an extended music video for their album Moon Music. This piece was screened in London, Seoul and New York. À propos de la série / About the Series

An open-air thrifting mecca in Johannesburg’s CBD, where discarded clothing comes to die or find new life, Dunusa evolves into a protagonist that speaks back to the West. Through this insight, unfamiliar audiences are invited to understand an empathy that comes from being engrossed in the context of the market – its conflicts, its chaos and contributions to the communities that it serves.

There is an intentional chaos to Dunusa through its mix of mediums, textures and influences. Contagious, the tension is palpable in the lookbook where the notions of ‘simultaneity and duality’ are embodied through frames in frames, quick moving visuals. The clothes themselves harness their capacity as a performative second skin that goes before its wearer, communicating sensibilities and defying prejudices.

The collection is charged with Dunusa’s demand for community, commitment, compassion, compromise, contribution and agility. In spite of the chaotic challenge of having what is unwanted in excess, the work employs surrealism to subvert the debilitating weight of neo-colonialism while tending to the collective scar of colonial extraction.

Bleeding and transfusing reality with speculative performance, Dunusa is a portrait encapsulating spatial and economic navigations of Johannesburg. A reflection of the city’s cycle, it is sharp in its ability to materialise the risk of surviving, the absurdity of imagining and the reward of resurrecting dreams that were declared dead.

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