Sangoma Cleansing Ritual at Kliprivier, Soweto
2011 - Photography (Photography)
38 x 38 cm
Santu Mofokeng
Santu Mofokeng is a South African photographer. Mofokeng was born in 1956 in Soweto. He began his career as a street photographer when he was still a teenager, then worked as an assistant in a darkroom and later became a news photographer, working on the Apartheid. He was part of the collective Africapix From the “Radiant Landscapes” series, this work is part of Santu Mofokeng’s investigation on water. Polluted to a great extend in South Africa, water remains a synonym of purity and is part of many rituals.
The photographic artwork of Santu Mofokeng (b. Soweto, South Africa, 1956), also known as Mofokengâ, explores the complicated societal paradigm of South Africa. Exploring rural farm life, townships, religious rituals and the quotidian life of Black South Africans, Mofokeng’s artwork significantly contributes to a greater understanding of development and identity in the South African context. Mofokeng’s acute insight into the cultural meanings in landscape is testified in his mastership of the photographic medium. Using black and white film as a reference to the documentary genre and a gesture of resistance to the color-rich saturation of consumer culture, Mofokeng’s work presents new meanings on the trodden landscapes Soweto, favoring memory and identity over ownership and power. In highlighting the impoverishment of South African landscape in the face of capital expansion, Mofokeng’s photographs implore emancipation from the global oppression of greed.
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