24 August 2024 - 23 March 2025
The Johannesburg Art Gallery, in collaboration with Goodman Gallery, is proud to present ‘Umkhondo: Going Deeper’, Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s first solo exhibition at the museum, following his 2023 FNB Art Prize Award.
‘Umkhondo: Going Deeper’ unites two significant and interconnected bodies of work — ‘I carry Her photo with Me’ and ‘Ezilalini (The Country)’ — seen together for the first time. The exhibition showcases Sobekwa’s journey of introspection and discovery as he wrestles with absence, loss and belonging.
Amakrwala Black Hill, 2021
Inkjet print on baryta
Work: 80 x 100 cm
Edition of 2
Amahashi wase Bathenjini, 2022
Inkjet on Baryta
Work: 40 x 50 cm
Edition of 7
It reflects his deep interest in (re)enactments of memory, personal histories and lived realities while also drawing attention to broader societal issues through a lens-based practice that spans over a decade. In ‘Umkhondo: Going Deeper’ Sobekwa critically examines the enduring legacies of historical injustices and their effects on personal and collective identities, work he describes as “confronting the deep scars left by apartheid and colonialism...exploring the fragmentation and poverty that continue to reverberate through South African society.”
The exhibition title follows Sobekwa’s first museum show in 2022 at Huis Marseille in the Netherlands — ‘Umkhondo. Tracing memory’ —where he participated in the ‘The Beauty of the World So Heavy’ summer programme. Translated as a “clue”, “trail” or “trace”, Umkhondo is a gesture to subtle imprints left behind — the fleeting memories etched into the fabric of time. The narrative thread of the exhibition is woven together by ideas of physical and spiritual journeys. The horizon line cuts into the sky, as a way to trace place, and trees as anchors, which like ancestors, connect both above ground and below.
Kwa Malume Mxolisi, 2019
Inkjet on Baryta
Work: 40 x 50 cm
Edition of 7
Gogo Lucy Zwane in her garden, 2021
Inkjet print on baryta
Work: 80 x 100 cm
Edition of 2
Intombi zakwaNala eMtyamde, 2021
Inkjet on Baryta
Frame: 40 x 50 cm
Edition of 7
UmamBhele uyatyabeka, 2020
Inkjet print on baryta
Work: 40 x 50 cm
Edition of 7
In ‘Ezilalini (The country’) bucolic rolling hills and entirely flat landscapes belly the beauty and the scars of erosion that quietly mark the landscape. Reflecting on the horizon as a place to which one never fully arrives, Sobekwa documents his journey from his birthplace in Katlehong (south of Johannesburg) to his ancestral home in the country, where his maternal grandmother still lives in Tsomo, in the Eastern Cape.
“I visited places where my mother is from, Tsomo, and where my father is from, Qumbu and collected oral history of my family. I tried to put all of that into the images as a way to mark history and family narratives that go unheard and are significant,” states Sobekwa.
Although in the logic of the English language, the horizon cannot be reached or touched, in Nguni languages, “Umngqameko”, can be arrived at — referencing the kinds of resolutions and forms of closure that are available through the search for one’s history. Absorbing the rich history of the countryside and the narratives attached to it, ‘Ezilalini (The Country)’ is an introspective project captured through tender images, described by Sobekwa as a place that “holds deep significance... It is a place where my roots run deep, yet it remains enigmatic and at times challenging to navigate.”
At the heart of the exhibition lies Sobekwa’s ongoing project, ‘I carry Her photo with Me’, which he began in 2017, following the painful experience of the disappearance and eventual passing of his sister Ziyanda. Prompted by a found family portrait with Ziyanda’s face missing, ‘I carry Her photo with Me’, has seen multiple iterations and forms. Developed into a hand-made photobook for inclusion in ‘African Cosmologies’ at the FotoFest Biennial Houston in 2020, the project includes a film interpretation, which will be shown for the first time in Johannesburg. The seven-minute video is an intimate portrait through image, text and sound. Images from the series —colourful clothes hanging on a washing line, the hostel where Ziyanda was found a decade later, hand-written scribbles and notes —intertwine over a poetic and melancholic composition scored by South African jazz musician and scholar Nduduzo Makhathini. Makhathini’s impressionistic offering responds to images that trace painful and joyful memories while also creating a space of possibility through the imagination of what could have been. The collaborative film captures the essence of Sobekwa’s distinctive approach to photography, which often incorporates scrapbook aesthetics as a process of documentation that expands the photographic image.
Captivated by the medium’s potential to enable storytelling, Sobekwa documents experiences as a form of excavation. ‘Khumalo street where accident’ happened captures the street corner where the car accident that led to Ziyanda’s disappearance occurred. The image holds profound significance. Sobekwa photographed this juncture and intensified its significance by inscribing it with a red marker. This act not only preserves memory but marks the journey of tracing. It symbolises his quest to unravel the mysteries of the past, stitching together fragments of memory to find comfort and closure.
Through ‘Umkhonto: Going Deeper’ Sobekwa explores the idea of photographs as markers of time (and in time) —how through documentation one can represent and retrace memories. Each image offers a kind of roadmap through close observation, levelling light on the pain and the harsh realities of life as well as the love and intimacies found in daily life.
My Mother visiting our ancestor's graveyard, 2020
Inkjet on Baryta
Work: 40 x 60 cm
Edition of 7
FNB Art Joburg Managing Director, Mandla Sibeko notes: “When you look back at the calibre of artists who have won the FNB Art Prize, they bring a lot of inspiration to all of us. They use such interesting materials to interrogate important issues. Lindokuhle Sobekwa is no different. What he does with the camera extends beyond documentary. Imbued in time, attention, feedback and collaboration, in his hand, the camera extends into conceptual territories that not only connects him to South Africa’s photographic constellation but expands the way audiences approach the medium.”
Sobekwa states: “The Johannesburg Art Gallery is a historic landmark in the city and being able to tell my personal story within the space through the FNB Art Prize is an incredible moment for me. Photography is a powerful tool. It has enabled me to share the realities of smaller, more intimate narratives that project onto the larger map that is South African history.”
Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b. 1995, Katlehong, South Africa) is from a generation of South African photographers born after the first democratic elections of 1994. Through his participation in the Of Soul and Joy photography education programme in Thokoza in 2012, he realised that the medium of photography would be an essential tool to tell stories that concern and interest him.
Sobekwa exhibited for the first time in 2013 as part of a group show in Thokoza organised by the Rubis Mécénat Foundation. His photo essay ‘Nyaope’ (2014) was published in the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), in Vice magazine’s annual Photo Issue and in the daily De Standaard (Belgium).
In 2015, Sobekwa was awarded a scholarship to study at the Market Photo Workshop. That same year his series ‘Nyaope’ was exhibited in another group show, ‘Free From My Happiness’, organised by Rubis Mécénat for the International Photo Festival of Ghent in Belgium. The exhibition toured additional sites in Belgium and South Africa. A publication edited by Tjorven Bruyneel included a selection of works. Sobekwa was selected by the Magnum Foundation For Photography and Social Justice (NYC) to develop the project ‘I carry Her photo with Me’. In 2018 he received the Magnum Foundation Fund to continue his long-term project ‘Nyaope’. In 2021 Sobekwa completed a residency at A4 Foundation in Cape Town, culminating in a two-person exhibition with Mikhael Subotzky titled ‘Tell It to the Mountains’. Sobekwa opened his first museum show in 2022 at Huis Marseille in The Netherlands, featuring the body of work ‘Umkhondo.
Ngqeleni, 2021
Inkjet print on baryta
Work: 80 x 100 cm
Edition of 3
Ezindongeni zase Khwezane, 2019
Inkjet on Baryta
Work: 40 x 60 cm
Edition of 7
Tracing memory’ as part of the summer programme titled ‘The beauty of the world so heavy’. His hand-made photobook, ‘I carry Her photo with Me’, was included in African Cosmologies at the FotoFest Biennial Houston in 2020, curated by Mark Sealy.
Sobekwa’s work was shown at Goodman Gallery in March 2023 as part of the photography show ‘Against the Grain’, alongside Ernest Cole, David Goldblatt, Ruth Motau and Ming Smith. He was named an official member of Magnum Photos in 2022 and gave a lecture about his practice at TATE Modern in 2023 as part of his John Kobal Foundation Fellowship. He was also awarded the 2023 FNB Art Prize which includes a solo show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in August 2024. His series ‘I carry Her photo with Me’ was published by Mack Books in 2024.