Lindokuhle SobekwaKhumalo street where accident happened (diptych), 2023
I carry Her photo with Me
This project started when I found a family portrait with my sister Ziyanda’s face cut out. She was a secretive, rebellious and rough person and I was young when she left home. The day she disappeared she was chasing me and I got hit by a car on a major road in my community. After that I didn’t see her again until a decade later, when she came home, sick. She passed away soon afterwards. When she returned I was already a photographer and I knew we didn’t have a picture of her. One day I saw this beautiful light coming in through the window shining on her face. I lifted up the camera to catch the moment and she shot me an evil look and said: “Stop! If you take that picture I am going to kill you!” So I lowered my camera. I still wish I had taken the shot. Disappearances like my sister’s are not unique to my family; many families in South Africa have a long history of people disappearing, dating back to the Apartheid era and even earlier. But it is something that is not often talked about and has a serious impact on families and communities. This project is a way of trying to make sense of Ziyanda’s disappearance and the historical implications of this phenomenon in South African society. It is also connected to my other bodies of work examining social and familial fragmentation and poverty in South Africa, as well as the lasting and long-reaching impact of Apartheid and colonialism across all levels of society.
