Our correspondant for the Netherlands, John Devos, covered Art Rotterdam 2026 and some of its satellite events for The Eye of Photography. Today we present the first part of the articles we received from him. The second part will follow tomorrow.
Images are memories made visible. But what if the images are missing, if you only have the memories? This was precisely the problem faced by the South African photographer Vuyo Mabheka (1999).
As a young child Mabheka grew up in a township with his grandmother, but after she died, he moved around a lot with his mother and little sister until they finally settled in the township of Thokoza outside of Johannesburg. Growing up fatherless and with his mother mostly far away from home, Mabheka had the responsibility of looking after his little sister. When her friends came to visit, they would play ‘popihuis’. “Popihuis” is the Xhosa word for the Afrikaans pophuis or dollhouse, and is further anglicised in Vuyo’s concept with an added ‘e’ at the end to become Popihuise.
He was first introduced to photography in 2017 through the Of Soul and Joy project, a community-based programme dedicated to equipping township youth with professional photographic skills. The work combines cut-outs of rare existing pictures of himself as a child with hand-drawn illustrations and staged scenes, often placing the artist himself alongside imagined friends and a faceless, fantasised father figure. These collages inhabit a dreamlike yet conflicted world one where shiny cars, blossoming trees, and graffiti-covered walls coexist with the harsh visual realities of modern township life: blood, burning tyres, weapons, and silence. A corrugated iron shack becomes a colourful house in Top Zinto, and a home without parents becomes the space of redemption for a nation in Imbali Yesizwe.
“Popihuise reclaims personal memory while confronting collective trauma,” says Mabheka. “It’s a deeply introspective act, one that helps me rewrite my past and honour the survival of my imagination in the midst of instability.
Vuyo Mabheka won in 2023-24 Vevey Special Jury prize and his book was awarded the prestigious book award during Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2025. He is represented by Afronova Gallery of Johannesburg founded by Emilie Dubois.
John Devos
johndevos.photo (a) gmail.com
