“Free from my Happiness” is a group show by South African photographers Sibusiso Bheka, Tshepiso Mazibuko and Lindokuhle Sobekwa who grew up in the township of Thokoza in South Africa.
Free from my Happiness
Three South African photographers have been guided by Tjorven Bruyneel and Bieke Depoorter into a creative journey in the township of Thokoza, that means “happiness” in zulu.
View Article details
- 15 June 2015
- Ghent
They got introduced to photography in 2012 through the Of Soul and Joy project initiated in the township by Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund. They use photography to portray their environment, telling stories they feel close to. Invited by the first International Photo Festival in Ghent, their works are shown for the first time in Europe in the exhibition “Free from my Happiness” curated by Belgium photographers Tjorven Bruyneel and Bieke Depoorter.
Thokoza is a forgotten, yet still struggling township located in the southeast of Johannesburg in South Africa. The township was created from scratch by the apartheid government in the 1950’s and built according to the theories of the racist “separate development” policy introduced a few years before. In the early 90’s Thokoza faced a period of increasing “black-on-black” violence. Today, the urban living areas in the peripheries of the cities have not changed. The living conditions remain the same, only the slum areas, where people live in shacks, have tripled.
In the exhibition “Free from my Happiness”, the three photographers document their surroundings. In At night, they walk with me, Sibusiso Bheka takes us through his childhood memories that often seem surreal. While Tshepiso Mazibuko with her series Encounters photographs the intimate space of people, Lindokuhle Sobekwa documents the life of young people using nyaope, a highly addictive drug popularized among young black South Africans. Nyaope. Everything you give me my Boss, will do relates to the slang drug users say when they beg. Belgian photographers Tjorven Bruyneel and Bieke Depoorter have guided the three young photographers into their creative journey. In zulu, Thokoza means “happiness”. Cameras in hand, Bheka, Mazibuko and Sobekwa decided in 2012 to “bear witness” to their everyday life as an escape and in the search of freedom: born after 1994, at the same time as democracy, they are part of the “Born Free” generation, as they are called in South Africa.
until August 30, 2015
Sibusiso Bheka, Tshepiso Mazibuko, Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Free from my Happiness
curated by Tjorven Bruyneel and Bieke Depoorter
exhibition within the framework of the Of Soul & Joy project
a Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund initiative
Photo Festival Ghent 2015
Saint Peter’s Abbey
Sint-Pietersplein 9
Ghent, Belgium