Santu Mofokeng, one of South Africa's most prominent photographers, began his work as a documentarian of the anti-Apartheid struggle. Eventually deciding to leave the field of straightforward photojournalism, he focused instead on isolating the simple gestures of everyday life in South African townships. His work explores landscape imbued with memory, loss, and spirituality, and forces us to examine any preconceived notion we have regarding exact locations of faith, identity, or community. The photographs serve to “reclaim landscape,” examining themes of ownership, and the relationship between the land, power, and money. In his extraordinary series Chasing Shadows, displaced people reclaim their spirituality and sustenance even in the midst of relentless transition. His most recent urban landscapes go beyond social and political commentary, meditating on the profound absurdity of living. Billboards cruelly highlight the impoverishment of the citizenry they importune.

Mofokeng has been the recipient of numerous awards. In 1991, he won the Ernest Cole Scholarship to study at the International Center of Photography in New York. He was also awarded the first Mother Jones Award for Africa in 1992, and more recently the Kunstlerhaus Worpswede Fellowship and DAAD Fellowship, both in Germany, and was the Prince Claus Laureate for Visual Arts in 2009.