The winner of the John Kobal Foundation Fellowship is Lindokuhle Sobekwa.
The inaugural John Kobal Foundation Fellowship Lecture by Lindokuhle Sobekwa will take place on Thursday 30th March, 2023, at Tate Modern, Starr Cinema.
Lindokuhle Sobekwa is a South African photographer born in Katlehong, Johannesburg in 1995. He is of a generation of South African photographers who were “born free” after the first democratic elections of 1994.
He came to photography in 2012 through his participation in the Of Soul and Joy Project, an educational programme that teaches high school learners photography in Thokoza, a township in the southeast of Johannesburg where he grew up. During this time Lindokuhle started photographing birthday parties and weddings; through his involvement in the programme he realised that the medium of photography could be a very important tool to tell stories that concern and interest him. At Of Soul and Joy Sobekwa studied with photographers Bieke Depoorter, Cyprien Clément-Delmas, Thabiso Sekgala, Tjorven Bruyneel, and Kutlwano Moagi.
Sobekwa exhibited his work for the first time in 2013 as part of a group show in Thokoza organised by the Rubis Mécénat foundation. His photo essay Nyaope was published in the Mail & Guardian (South Africa) in 2014.
In 2017 Sobekwa was selected by the Magnum Foundation for Photography and Social Justice (NYC) to develop the project I carry Her photo of Me. In 2018 he received the Magnum Foundation Fund to continue with his long-term project Nyaope.
