Lebohang Kganye has won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2024. The artist was announced as the 2024 winner of the prestigious £30,000 prize at a special ceremony at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, by Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries for London.
It’s an honour to win the Prize and to have my name alongside this year’s shortlisted artists, whose practices are critically engaging the urgent issues of our time.
Lebohang Kganye, Winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2024
The influential prize, in partnership with the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, rewards artists and their projects recognised as having made the most significant contribution to international contemporary photography over the past 12 months. 2024 marks 20 years of partnership between The Photographers’ Gallery and Deutsche Börse.
Lebohang Kganye was awarded the Prize for the exhibition Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home at Foam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (17th February – 21st May 2023). Lebohang Kganye (b. 1990, South Africa) combines photography, sculpture, performance, theatre and moving image into her multifaceted artistic practice.
Exploring the intersections of personal history and ancestry, Kganye draws inspiration from shared oral histories and fictional texts. Growing up in post-apartheid Johannesburg, she delves into South Africa’s complex past and reflects on the realities and consequences of apartheid and colonialism.
The nominated exhibition’s title, Haufi nyana? meaning ‘too close?’ in Sesotho, one of South Africa’s official languages, explores and reimagines notions of home, belonging, heritage and identity. In the large-scale installation on display at The Photographers’ Gallery, Kganye uses silhouettes and life-sized cut-out figures of her family crafted from images in photo albums. The installation considers the impact of her family’s forced migration, due to land acts and apartheid law, including the alteration of their surname. Through symbolic elements, such as a central rotating light representing the Sesotho word for ‘light’, kganya, she symbolises her ancestral heritage.
Many congratulations to Lebohang. I’m delighted to announce her as the winner in this special year when we celebrate 20 years of collaborating with The Photographers’ Gallery and 25 years of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. Lebohang’s nominated exhibition Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home at Foam in Amsterdam was an exciting and engaging insight into her developing career. Her risk-
taking exploration of her family history opens up important discussions about the realities and consequences of apartheid.There is a powerful conversation running through the work of all of the nominated artists this year. A vital conversation about displacement, hidden histories and unheard voices. The artists all question the shifting nature and parameters of photography now. Deciding the 2024 winner was a difficult decision – many congratulations to the other shortlisted artists VALIE EXPORT, Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad and Hrair Sarkissian. We are thrilled to have brought their work together for this year’s Prize.
Anne-Marie Beckmann, Director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation,
The other 2024 shortlisted artists – VALIE EXPORT, Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad and Hrair Sarkissian – all received £5,000.
The exhibition showcasing all five artists is at The Photographers’ Gallery until 2nd June 2024.
The exhibition will then be on show at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Eschborn/Frankfurt, Germany, from 13th June to 22nd September 2024.
This year’s Jury was: Rahaab Allana, Curator/Publisher, at Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, India; Quentin Bajac, Director of the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; Anne-Marie Beckmann, Director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Frankfurt/Main, Germany; Laura El-Tantawy, documentary photographer; and Clare Grafik, Acting Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London, as voting Chair.
