Tshepiso Mazibuko
Ho tshepa ntshepedi ya bontshepe
The title of this body of work is a Sesotho proverb meaning to expect something that will never happen. For me this proverb is a paradox of the term “bornfree” – it is an illusion that places youth born after 1994 in a position of temporal “freedom”.
The structural remnants of apartheid mean that this freedom has not been fully realised for all. This is further complicated by cross-generational desires and hopes that meet through political and familial expectations of “bornfrees”.
I use this designation as a prompt to turn my camera inwards to think about individual self-positioning, and to uncover my position in relation to my community within current societal constructs.
This is a project of understanding people’s wounds, and mine. Of being empathetic. The intimacy that is present when photographing comes perhaps from sharing wounds that are similar to each other’s. I was covering representations of how deep the wound really is. It’s a journey of me looking for myself or finding pieces of myself in all the people photographed and their experiences.
June 2026
About Tshepiso Mazibuko
Tshepiso Mazibuko (b 1995 Thokoza, Gauteng) was first introduced to photography in high school through Of Soul and Joy, a photography education project initiated by French gas company Rubis Mécénat . She then furthered her studies at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, completing her studies in 2016. In 2017 she received the Tierney Fellowship for the work exhibited here, Ho tshepa ntshepedi ya bontshepe. She won a Prince Claus Fund Award grant in 2018 for her project Between Spaces.
She uses the medium of photography as a vessel to self-position herself and create links between politics, society, landscape and history.
In 2021 she became one of the founding members of the Johannesburg based Umhlabathi Collective. In 2024 her essay Ho tshepa ntshepedi ya bontshepe won the Louis Roederer Discovery Award Public prize as well as the Prix De La PhotoMadame Figaro Arle