PHOTO: Lebohang Kganye

Lebohang Kganye is an artist living and working in Johannesburg. Kganye received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She also completed her Fine Arts studies at the University of Johannesburg in 2016 and forms a new generation of contemporary South African photographers. Although primarily a photographer, Kganye’s photography often incorporates her interest in sculpture and performance.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Foam Archive

In 2022, Lebohang Kganye won the 16th edition of the Foam Paul Huf Award and now presents “Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home”, her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands.The artistic practice of Lebohang Kganye is focused on exploring the personal and collective ‘micro histories’ of her family. It is embedded in the wider history of South Africa from before, during, and in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism. Her work is largely informed by oral narratives and texts — she collects stories about the impact of apartheid on her family along with plots from South African literature. Words are translated into a ‘play’ or theatrical scripts, and images, sourced from vernacular albums or produced by the artist, are turned into settings, silhouettes, cut-outs, puppets, shadows or even ghosts that fill the imaginative space between words. Kganye is interested in the dynamics between memory and fantasy that photography and storytelling jointly create. The constructed nature of both images and words allows her to bridge gaps in (collective) memory. Effortlessly moving within the sphere of possibilities, Kganye develops methods of decolonizing the medium of photography and South African cultural heritage. ‘Haufi nyana?’ means ‘Too close?’ in Sesotho, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. The exhibition title refers to the nature of the dialogue between a viewer and the artist: how far can one enter a photographic autobiography on the one hand, and how much can one share a personal story on the other? It also refers to the idea of ‘home’ — which can be far, close, or too close… perhaps even simultaneously. The exhibition showcases four projects from the artist’s oeuvre, spanning the last decade. Each emphasises the complex visual vocabulary of the artist, and the diversity of media and approaches she engages with, from photographic montages (Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story, 2013) to spatial installation (Mohlokomedi wa Tora, 2018), and from film animation (Shadows of Re-Memory, 2021) to patchwork (Mosebetsi wa Dirithi, 2022).

Photo: Lebohang Kganye, Shadows of Re-Memory”, Film Still 1, 2021 © Lebohang Kganye, Courtesy the artist and Foam

Info: Foam Museum, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 17/2-21/5/2023, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 11:00-21:00, www.foam.org/