Prestigious photography prize awarded to Witsie
- Wits Alumni Relations
Lebohang Kganye awarded the 2024 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Johannesburg-based visual artist and Wits master’s student Lebohang Kganye was announced as the 2024 winner of the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize at The Photographers’ Gallery in London on 16 May 2024. 
The prize is considered the Turner Prize of the photography world and rewards artists who have made the most significant contribution to international contemporary photography over the past 12 months.
Kganye was awarded the prize for the exhibition “Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home” at the Foam gallery in Amsterdam held between 17 February till 21 May 2023. She received £30,000 in prize money and her work will be on show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London until 2 June 2024. The work was praised for tracing her personal history during apartheid in a fresh manner.
Clare Grafik, acting director of The Photographers’ Gallery said, “We are delighted to announce Lebohang Kganye as the winner of the 2024 Prize. Her innovative use of photography brings together past and present to explore the political through deeply personal stories of her own family and history. Sometimes theatrical, always experimental, her use of photography and her own archives is powerful and refreshing.”
When asked what the recognition meant Kganye said via email: This prize is for my mama Dimakatso. In 2010, her death prompted me to travel across South Africa to trace my maternal ancestry. The stories that I collected in conversations with my extended family became the source material for my work, an archive that I continues to draw upon today.
"I was raised by women: my mother, grandmother and aunts. Being raised by women who pray, laugh, eat and play has allowed me to be in my purpose and constantly hone my gifts. I saw life through their eyes but I had a burning desire from a young age to go to all 'corners' of the earth and experience how other people live and hear their stories," she said.
Kganye’s exhibition "Haufi nyana?" means "too close?" in Sesotho, and features life-sized cutouts of her family. According to the catalogue, it "touches on notions of home as heritage and identity, as well as physical and mental spaces. Her skilful blending of images and words allows her to navigate the complexity of the South African experience, opening new ways of understanding and contributing to the process of decolonisation.”
She said: "As an artist I want my work to be mirror for others, for them to see themselves reflected. This is for us!"
Kganye also featured in Wits Review, Vol 47 in 2022, shortly after she was awarded the Foam Paul Huf Award. In 2022 she was the Grand Prix Images Vevey winner, while in 2020, she received the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize.
The three other artists shortlisted are VALIE EXPORT, Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad and Hrair Sarkissian. All their work will be on display from 13 June to 22 September 2024 at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn, Frankfurt.
* This article was updated on 22 May 2024 to include Kganye's comment