Image: Lerato Ntombela
Witsies with the edge
Awards
LEBOHANG KGANYE Winner of the internationally acclaimed Foam Paul Huf Award — 2021/2022 Grand Prix Images Vevey winner
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Award-winning photographer and Wits master’s student Lebohang Kganye is the 16th winner of the internationally acclaimed Foam Paul Huf Award. She was chosen by a five-member jury of experts from a pool of around 100 nominees, selected from 21 countries. The Foam Paul Huf Award is presented annually to an up-and-coming talent. She will receive an amount of €20 000 and her work will be on display during a solo exhibition at the Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. This follows her most recent accomplishment in January 2022 as the Grand Prix Images Vevey winner. In 2020 she received the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize and in 2019 the Camera Austria Award. She was also a finalist of the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative in 2019. Her work has been exhibited at the Carnegie
Museum of Art in Pennsylvania and the Walther Collection in Ulm. Over the past eight years she has exhibited her work extensively within curated group exhibitions and biennales, most recently Family Affairs. With her work, Kganye delves into themes from her own history and origin, which simultaneously resonate with the history of South Africa and apartheid. “The award comes at a time when my relationship with the way I make art has changed quite a bit and I recognise that healing is the main goal in my stories. I am grateful that others experience this healing as well. The way I express myself visually has changed and relevance and oral traditions are central to this. The selection of works shows how I am thinking through my practice and shows the connections that I make,” she said.
