kuLungile, 2026

The Photo album: Thatha ikhekhe lakho mfana

The Photo album is influenced by Santu Mofokeng Photo album titled The Black Photo Album: Look at Me: 1890-1950

These are images that urban black working- and middle-class families had commissioned, requested, or tacitly sanctioned. They are left behind by dead relatives, where they sometimes hang on obscure parlor walls in the townships. In some families they are coveted as treasures, displacing totems in discursive narratives about identity, lineage, and personality. And because, to some people, photographs contain the ‘shadow’ (essence) of the subject, they are carefully guarded from the ill will of witches and enemies. In other families they are being destroyed as ‘rubbish’ during spring ‘cleans’ because of interruptions, discontinuities or disaffection with the subject or the narratives encapsulated in the image (Mofokeng, 2013).

So, for me the photo album titled “Thatha ikhekhe lakho mfana” comes from this idea of a birthday gift to a boy child /or my younger self, this idea of a nuclear family within the black family structure is possible but it’s not easy in this contemporary world. Showing this notion of black love whether as friends, lovers and family. I guess the album also speaks about my name Lusanda loosely translated means the growth. My mother told me she gave me the name with hope that I will continue the growth of the family lineage with love. In xhosa would say “lusanda usapho ngothando” I guess the album is a tribute to my name trying to live up to my mother’s wishes.