Sean Metelerkamp was born in 1984 in Knysna, South Africa. Sean’s fascination with photography began in the darkroom at boarding school. At home, on school holidays, he escaped into the music videos of MTV’s golden age.

These two interests led to photographing and directing music videos for independent South African musicians, most notably Die Antwoord, peaking in the video Zef-Side, which was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2010.
New York Times – “The Home Video rises to Museum Grade”
Zef-Side won the D&AD Yellow Pencil for Best Music Video in 2011 and was subsequently exhibited at the Museum of the Moving Image, in New York in 2013, as part of ‘Spectacle’, which explored the music video as an important and influential art form in contemporary culture featuring directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham – Sean’s biggest influences.

A six-month residency followed at Residency Unlimited. During this period in the USA Sean connected with Death Grips and has made three videos with them: Black Google and Eh and Interview 2016.

Returning home, Sean travelled throughout South Africa in a kickstarter-funded project; Twenty Journey – to uncover why he wanted to escape in the first place. The project culminated in Sean’s debut feature documentary, which opened the Durban International Film Festival and won the award for Best South African Documentary.
Variety – “Durban: Fest Opener ‘Journeymen’ Explores Authentic South Africa”

Following the Twenty Journey, Sean has been capturing the attitude driving the rebranding of South Africa following Rhodes Must Fall. ‘Matric, fare well’ (working title) is an attempt to unceremoniously dump the perplexity in fashioning an identity as a South African onto the future of the nation. The project is yet to be released.

Sean is currently in a Series of Episodes: