Artist Database

Santu Mofokeng, born in 1956 in Soweto, was a pivotal South African photographer renowned for his exploration of identity and history through unconventional lenses. A member of the Afrapix collective in the 1980s and a student of David Goldblatt, Mofokeng challenged the conventional use of photographic archives. His seminal project, The Black Photo Album/Look at Me: 1890–1950, developed during his tenure with the African Studies Institute’s Oral History Project at the University of the Witwatersrand (1988–1998), recontextualised family photographs as an alternative to the state's official apartheid-era narratives.

Mofokeng’s projects extended to other notable series like Train Church (1986), The Bloemhof Portfolio (1988 to 1994), and Chasing Shadows (1996–2014). His work, which featured globally from the Venice Biennale (2013) to exhibitions throughout Europe, the USA, the UK, and South America, received much acclaim and led to awards such as the Ernest Cole Scholarship in 1991 for study at the International Centre for Photography in New York. Mofokeng’s work is in prominent collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.