Lebohang Kganye wins the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Lebohang Kganye, detail of Mohlokomedi wa Tora, 2018, Scene 1 © Lebohang Kganye. Courtesy of the artist.
South African photographer Lebohang Kganye has won the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for her exhibition “Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home,” which took place in 2023 at Foam, Amsterdam. The announcement was made at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, which is hosting an exhibition featuring all shortlisted artists, including VALIE EXPORT, Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad, and Hrair Sarkissian, open until June 2nd.
Now in its 20th year, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery, awards £30,000 to an artist making significant contributions to international contemporary photography. The other shortlisted artists each receive £5,000.
Kganye, born in 1990 in South Africa, explores themes of home, belonging, and identity through large-scale installations that combine photography with sculpture, performance, and moving image. For her installation at the Photographers’ Gallery, the artist used life-sized cut-out figures of her family members, taken from family albums, to reference her family’s forced migration and oppression during apartheid in South Africa. The exhibition’s title—meaning “too close” in Sesotho—evokes her interest in belonging, home, and identity.
