“By inserting myself into my mother’s pictorial narrative, found in her photo album—her stories became ours. Through digital photomontages, I juxtaposed old photographs retrieved from the family archives of my mother in her 20s and 30s, to reconstruct a new story and build the bridge, where she is me and I am her. I restaged my mother’s photographs in the same location she had been photographed, wearing the same clothes and mimicking the same poses and expressions to reconnect with her spirit. My reconnection with my late mother became a substitute for the paucity of memory through visual manipulation. Thus, studying and visually emulating my adoption of the role of mother to my younger sister after our mother’s death, as well as an exploration of masquerading strategies in autobiographical acts.” — Lebohang Kganye

Kganye's work is centered around personal and familial history. Her series Ke Lefa Laka: Her-story stems from confronting grief from the loss of her mother, while maintaining a connection to her and generational history. The title translates to “it’s my legacy” in seSotho. Kganye explains, “That work just came on its own, somehow it gave birth to itself through me.”

Lebohang Kganye was born in 1990 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she currently lives and works. Kganye received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop, in Johannesburg, in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She obtained a Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of Johannesburg in 2014 and is currently doing her Masters in Fine Arts at the Witwatersrand University. Notable awards include the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2021/22, Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize, 2020, Camera Austria Award, 2019 and the finalist of the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative, 2019.