Notes to Phila Ndwandwe Photograph

Tshepiso Mabula ka Ndongeni is a writer and photographer based in Soweto, johannesburg. Mabula’s passion for photography was ignited during a visit to her home village of Lephalale where she was introduced to work by legendary South African photographer Santu Mofokeng, this led her to study photojournalism and documentary photography at the iconic Market photo workshop. Mabula explores the small things through photography: exposing humanity in oppositional, chaotic or even banal environments. She attempts to capture the dignity in ordinary people, far removed from the glamorous or ideal atmospheres of high-profile photography. Her work deals primarily with memory, loss and the fleeting sense of what it means to truly belong. She creates works that address issues that affect mostly black working class people in South Africa, looking at how history can be reconciled with the present. She is the 11th recipient of the Tierney fellowship and her first solo exhibition was titled Ukugrumba. She has exhibited work at the Art Africa fair in Cape Town, the La Quinta del sordo gallery in Madrid and has been featured in a number of group shows including the 40/40 politics of photography group exhibition which opened at the Market photo workshop gallery in 2016. Mabula was named amongst the 2016 top 200 young South africans by the Mail and Guardian and she is an almnus of the Design Indaba emerging creatives class of 2019.