Lebohang Kganye, visual artist and photographer

Context: Below are downloadable PDFs with detailed information about each project.

Lebohang Kganye about / cv / press

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 forms a new generation of contemporary South African photographers.

A Burden Consumed in Sips, Video Installation, 2023

The 22 panel, panoramic installation of the film A Burden Consumed in Sips (2023), is derivative of the material form of the ink drawings of Cameroonian landscapes documented by Marie Pauline Thorbecke during her 1911 colonial expedition.

Two Stories of (Hi)Stories, Photography, Installation, 2023

In this series that accompanies the film installation A Burden Consumed in Sips (2023), the artist assembles historical photographs by Marie Pauline Thorbecke from the museum‘s archive with episodes of Cameroonian history related to the Kingdom of Bamum, founded in 1394.

Mosebetsi wa Dirithi, Patchwork, 2022–23

Each piece of Mohlokomedi wa Tora is rooted in the curious fascination that Kganye’s practice has always had with the black family photo album.

Keep the Light Faithfully, Photography, Installation, 2022

The history of the rarely known and gendered narratives of hundreds of light keepers from the nineteenth and twentieth century and the impact of labour on family structures.

Staging Memories, Photography, Installation, 2022

Staging Memories emphasizes the fabricated nature of history and memory: how the visualization of an event always induces an element of creation; an on-going construction.

Dipina tsa Kganya, Three-channel Video Installation, 2021

The word dipina means ‘songs’ in my mother language of seSotho. The song referred to is that of my family clan names, passed down through oral tradition. Additionally, the Sotho word for ‘light’: kganya – is in the etymology of my last name: Kganye. […] Commissioned by Bristol Photo Festival, this work features two performances informed by a notion of healing, enacted through acts of naming and cleansing.

Shadows of Re-Memory, Film, 2021

This film builds the stage for the ghosts based on literary pieces The Road to Mecca (1984) and The Train Driver (2010) by Athol Fugard, and the non-fiction Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa’s Past (2004) by Lauren Beukes — all connected through the presence of interesting female characters.

In Search for Memory, Photography, Installation, 2020

The body of work inspired by Malawian writer Muthi Nhlema’s science fiction novella TA O’REVA (2015).

Mohlokomedi wa Tora, Installation, 2018

The photographs, transformed into sculptural installations, challenge the invisible dividers existing in art-making. This work adds to the already complex visual vocabulary of Lebohang Kganye.

Tell Tale, Photography, Installation, 2018

Inspired by Athol Fugard’s plays, this work was creatively conceived during the residency in Nieu Bethesda, South Africa.

Ke Sale Teng, Film, 2017

This film references family memories and the materiality of photo albums, unfolding like pages in a pop-up book, while engaging with the construction of family archives, their orchestration and preservation.

Reconstruction of a Family, Photography, 2016

Family photographs are more than just a documentation of events that have occurred, but a space for us to project what we can recall and perhaps a space to question and invent a new history.

Ke Lefa Laka: Heir-story, Photography, 2013 /
Pied Piper’s Voyage, Film, 2014

The project documents my personal history and straddles generations of my mother’s family, it also resonates the history of South Africa, in that my family was uprooted and resettled because of apartheid laws and the amendment of land acts.

Ke Lefa Laka: Her-story, Photography, 2013

My mother was my main link to our extended family and past, since we all now live in separate homes. Her death sparked the need to trace my ancestral roots and to locate myself in the wider family on some level and perhaps also to explore the possibility of keeping a connection with her. The idea of ‘the ghost’ started to emerge in my work.