Heart of the garden
Lindokuhle Sobekwa | Heart of the garden
Goodman Gallery London
Goodman Gallery London
2 April 2024
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Head-Image
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.
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Amakrwala Black Hill, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 in.)
Edition of 3
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Gogo Lucy Zwane in her garden, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Ngqeleni, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Symbol of graves, 2020
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 50 x 60 cm (19.7 x 23.6 in.)
Edition of 7 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Omama Bathwelinyanda, 2020
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 50 x 60 cm (19.7 x 23.6 in.)
Edition of 7 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Sanele resting in field, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 80 x 100 cm (31.5 x 39.4 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Inkomo zakwa Mamsago I and II, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 50 x 60 cm (19.7 x 23.6 in.)
Edition of 7 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Luvo in the garden II, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 100 x 80 cm (39.4 x 31.5 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Luvo in the garden I, 2021
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 100 x 80 cm (39.4 x 31.5 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
UmamBhele uyatyabeka, 2020
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 40 x 50 cm (15.7 x 19.7 in.)
Edition of 7
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Yonelisa Samela in his grandmother’s garden during
South Africa’s first lockdown, 2020
Inkjet print on cotton rag
Work: 60 x 40 cm (23.6 x 15.7 in.)
Edition of 7 + 2 AP
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 (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 (Netherlands), featuring the body of work Umkhondo. Tracing memory as part of the summer programme 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 (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 and as part of the award will have a solo show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in September this year. His series I carry Her photo with Me will be published by Mack Books in 2024.
