Lindokuhle Sobekwa | Heart of the garden
South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s first solo presentation in London titled ‘Heart of the garden’ explores the multiplicity of place and identity. This new body of work reflects on the lingering effects of Apartheid with reference to his family history and his ancestral home in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
‘This story behind this body of work was motivated by an earlier project, ‘I carry Her photo with Me’, which is about the disappearance of my sister Ziyanda. As part of that project, I traced her footprints back to the Eastern Cape, exploring her earlier life in Tsomo and the surrounding area. Through this process I was able to reconnect with family and uncover a wider sense of my identity. However, I realised that this was also a place that I know very little about.’ – Lindokuhle Sobekwa, 2024
The presentation includes work from Sobekwa’s series Ezilalini (The country) which offers a reflection on the division between the rural and urban areas structured by Apartheid spatial planning; a deliberate system that still affects family structures and economic access today. This division is represented through his photographic journey from his birthplace Katlehong – a large township in the south-east of Johannesburg – to where his grandmother lives in Tsomo in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. The work unpacks the complex sense of spiritual longing and desire to reconcile psychogeographic dislocation that comes from being in a place where one exists out of forced familial fragmentation and systemic dispossession.
Artworks
About
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b. 1995 in Katlehong, Johannesburg) is a South African photographer. He was introduced to photography in 2012, through the Of Soul and Joy Project in Buhlebuzile High School in Thokoza township, where his photography mentors included Bieke Depoorter, Cyprien Clément-Delmas, Thabiso Sekgala, Tjorven Bruyneel and Kutlwano Moagi.
In 2024, Sobekwa presented solo show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery titled Umkhondo: Going Deeper, following his 2023 FNB Art Prize Award.
In 2023, Sobekwa was awarded the inaugural John Kobal Foundation Fellowship. Maintaining the scrapbook aesthetic of the handmade edition for his first photobook, I carry Her photo with Me, a photographic search for answers about the disappearance of his sister Ziyanda, was published in 2024.
In 2022, he opened his first museum show at Huis Marseille (Amsterdam), featuring the body of work Umkhondo. Tracing Memory, as part of the summer program The Beauty of the World So Heavy. His handmade photobook, I carry Her photo with Me, was included in African Cosmologies at the FotoFest Biennial Houston (2020), curated by Mark Sealy.
In 2021, he completed a residency at A4 Foundation in Cape Town, which culminated in a two-person exhibition with Mikhael Subotzky titled Tell It to the Mountains. He is also currently working on a collaborative project with French Photographer Cyprien Clément-Delmas about the community of Daleside in South Africa. This series was published by Gost in 2021 and has been supported by the Rubis Mécénat Foundation.
Sobekwa’s work has been exhibited in South Africa, Iran, Norway, the US and the Netherlands. His breakout photo series Nyaope: ‘Everything you do my Boss, will do’ was published in the Mail & Guardian (South Africa) in 2014 and his work was featured in Vice magazine and the Standaard in the same year. He completed the foundation course at Market Photo Workshop and in 2017, Sobekwa was selected by the Magnum Foundation as a fellow in the renowned Photography and Social Justice program.
Sobekwa lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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