In their announcement, the jury praised Lebohang Kganye’s Staging Memories project for its ‘visual inventiveness, historical rigor, and daring conceptualization’ as it won the Grand Prix Images Vevey for 2021/2022.
Staging Memories is part of Kganye’s new series entitled In Search for Memory, which was launched in 2020. This series aims to evaluate the fictional novella Ta O’Reva by Malawian writer Muhti Nhlema, intended as a critique of the novella. In this way, the project hopes to interrogate and explore the contradictions and fictions contained within human memories of shared narratives.
Kganye was born in South Africa and has been deeply influenced by master artists from the country, including William Kentridge, David Goldblatt, Sam Nhlengethwa, and Zanele Muholi. Despite that, she is developing her own unique voice, which blends a strong sense of fantasy, political awareness, and intimacy in an exciting way.
As Kganye’s project points out, personal and familial experiences are intertwined with societal boundaries in fascinating and resounding ways. A substantial part of her work includes images taken from family albums, as well as material that include photography, collage, installation, and set design.
A large-scale, three-dimensional installation will explore the materiality of photography on a grand scale with work from the theatre and literature disciplines in this first public manifestation of Staging Memories for Images Vevey.
The likes of Teju Cole chair the jury alongside Frederica Angelucci, Milena Carstens, Julien Guerrier and Shoair Mavlian.
Lebohang Kganye was born in 1990 in Johannesburg, where she currently lives and works. She is a UJ graduate and hold a diploma in fine arts, and is currently pursuing her masters in fine arts at WITS. Lebohang Kganye’s win at the Grand Prix Images Vevey sure is a great achievement!
