Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Gogo Lucy Zwane in her garden, 2021. Inkjet print on cotton rag

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.

Free

Opening Hours

Tue-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 11am-4pm

Location:

26 Cork Street,
London, W1S 3ND

Text and pictures, copyright goodman gallery and the artist