Lindokuhle Sobekwa ‘Bhayi alembathwa lembathwa ngabalaziyo’. 2020.
“The series Ezilalini (The Country) grew out of my project ‘I carry Her photo with Me’, a hand-made photobook about my sister Ziyanda. As I investi (...)
gated her disappearance I traced her footprints back to Tsomo, in the Eastern Cape, which is my ancestral home and is where my sister grew up. Unexpectedly, this journey provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family, identity, and culture: engaging parts of myself and my history that I had not considered before, or perhaps had avoided thinking about. Tsomo has a deep meaning to my family, and to me personally, but I feel it is a place I don’t know very well. There is also a feeling of conflict for us there: to this day my grandmother curses Johannesburg as a place that swallowed her children.
The title of this image is ‘Bhayi alembathwa lembathwa ngabalaziyo’, relating to the idea that only the pot knows how hot the fire is.”
– Lindokuhle Sobekwa © Lindokuhle Sobekwa | Magnum Photos