In old family photos, a South African artist relives the life of his late mother – Henry Club

After the death of Lebohang Kagne’s mother at the age of 49, the South African artist began to leave behind the things she left behind as a means of coping with grief.

In her mother’s wardrobe, Kganye recognized clothing and jewelry she had only seen in old photographs, many of them taken before she was born. One of them was a female calf-length white halter sundress tied at the front; a vibrant red top with a white-trimmed collar; Long coat with attractive black and white pattern.

“I was trying to somehow locate him, or reconnect with him on this journey,” Kagne explained in a video call from Johannesburg.

It was through this catharsis process that Kagne found direction in his photography practice. She dressed her mom and styled her hair as she did, then recreated the scenes, superimposing her own spectral image directly into old family photos.

Her mother was a tough woman, but playful and a bit unconventional, the South African artist recalled from her home in Johannesburg. She was religious, but open-minded, she said, and practical when it comes to matters of spirituality. In the images chosen by Kganye, her mother was only a few years older than the artist, with a sense of easy confidence in neatly tailored clothing and knee-length hem.

In each painting, Kagni becomes a time traveler, an abstract presence who watches the events that eventually lead to a life of its own. She seems to twinkle in and out of existence in group pictures, and when her mother is alone, it takes the form of a haunting double display. In one image, she reaches up to herself as a child, smiling as a younger version of herself takes a step.

In creating the body of work titled “Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story”, Kagni visited his relatives from South Africa – they helped him locate the exact locations, and they began to collect their stories as well. . Done, laid the groundwork for one. A later series that reconstructs her family and cultural history. Before embarking on the project, she felt detached from her roots—she didn’t even know that her last name, meaning “light,” was spelled three different ways between family members. But through his research, he found it was the result of a combination of things, from illiteracy and misspellings by local authorities to the apartheid-era forced expulsion that killed some 3.5 million black South Africans in the late 20th century. killed. displaced. ,

“After losing my mom grew so much for me, I was like, ‘I don’t really know the people I’ve been left behind with,'” she said. “A lot of research allowed … an intimacy I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

reconstruction of memories

Kganye has now shown her photographs around the world, and next month she will represent South Africa at the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s biggest events in the art world, where she will show pictures from an early series in which she herself shows to. classic story. adapts the stories but sets them in an African settlement.

“Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story,” along with two other intertwined series, is on display at the Rosegallery in Santa Monica, California. The show, titled “What are you leaving behind?”, examines her place within her family and her wider South African heritage, as she goes through a period of image-building that was largely about loss. . Was.

“I wanted to get away from it … to do something that was about mourning,” she explained.

From the series “Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story”. Credit: Thanks Kagni / RoseGallery

Over the years, Kganye has developed a practice in which he recreates memories in a variety of ways, by restoring photographs or creating diorama-like scenes based on oral history. But in each project, Kagni uses the picture as a theater stage, creating the cast, props, and atmosphere to unfold his narratives.

The series, “Rebuilding a Family”, is set in a fictionalized version of her grandparents’ home in Johannesburg, with a black-and-white tableau made of cardboard. Each image is based on memories of her family – stories of her relatives often center on her grandfather, who was the first person in her family to break away from becoming a farmer. Instead, he moved to the city during apartheid to work in a factory and start a family, and his home became a way for other family members who abandoned their farms. But for Kagni, who had never met him before his death, his grandfather had always been more of a symbol than a fully muscular man—a man in a suit and formal shoes whom she recognized from photographs. . , but knew very little about him.

“(The work) centered around my grandfather because this guy became like the Pied Piper who took everyone in my family to the fields,” she said.

From the series “Rebuilding a Family”. Credit: Thanks Kagni / RoseGallery

In recording her family’s oral history, she realized how fluid memories are – how accounts by the same storyteller vary, or even turn into retellings of them. So she reflected a sense of skepticism in her work, in which the details of each figure were obscured by the blackness of the silhouette.

“We have these gaps in our memory,” she said. “As they’re telling me about all these different stories, they had these elements of fantasy and fantasy.”

However, his grandfather came alive through his research. He was a man courageous enough to emigrate to the city, who was boldly witty and extremely thrifty, and who, once drunk, had to be taken home in a wheelbarrow. (An account of her aunt recounts a time when she was given the arduous task of biting off her toenails, so Kagni included an image of an oversized clipper in the scene.)

From the series “Telltel”. Credit: Thanks Kagni / RoseGallery

But in all of Kganye’s works, including the 2018 series “Telltell,” which goes from her family to the oral histories of residents of the village of Nieu-Bethesda, where one of her artists resided, she tries to understand herself better. She tries the complexities of the country. After the loss of his mother, he anchored himself through all of history, from the personal to the gross, which touched and shaped his life.

“(There) this grand tale of history, history that is meant to represent the whole of South Africa,” she said. “But it’s really in the microscopic history where we get to hear how apartheid really affected families and family structures.”

The question Kagni posed in the show’s title refers to several things – what her mother left behind, what South African families left behind, and what Kagani left behind because she was unhappy with her job. removes from B. But out of that sense of loss he made a solid record of his place in the world—something that will remain with him long after he is gone.