Middle East & Africa

Santu Mofokeng

Sangoma Cleansing Ritual at Kliprivier, Soweto

2011

Santu Mofokeng, Sangoma Cleansing Ritual at Kliprivier, Soweto, 2011. Photography.

This work is from the series Radiant Landscapes, which started in 2010 and is a continuation of his previous work Chasing Shadows and is composed of sixteen photographs, of which four are in color. Santu Mofokeng has mainly worked in black and white, often used for the documentary genre, but this choice is also a rejection of the colorful consumer culture. Nonetheless, in this series, there are a few color photographs of the polluted rivers. He draws an interesting relation between the religious beliefs and rituals (Sangoma) in opposition to the threats of these rivers and their contaminated waters. This visual denunciation shows an abused landscape and questions its repercussion on people’s lives.

Through his innovative photographic representation, Santu Mofokeng reveals the current traces of the mistreatment of the landscape and questions the consequences on the future of South Africa.

Santu Mofokeng’s work has contributed significantly to the research on human development in South Africa. Indeed his work has offered an insightful approach to landscape and its traces and has managed to show the relationship between environment and development that emerge from it. His work of the last thirty years shows the city of Soweto, where he lived when he was young, the everyday life on farms and in townships, the landscape of the country, and the religious 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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Santu Mofokeng Sangoma Cleansing Ritual at Kliprivier, Soweto

Santu Mofokeng

Sangoma Cleansing Ritual at Kliprivier, Soweto