Sabelo Mlangeni - Isivumelwano

The South African photographer Sabelo Mlangeni (1980, Driefontein, South Africa), known for his documentary work on generally overlooked groups and cultures, shows a selection of a remarkable archive of wedding photographs for the first time. The exhibition Isivumelwano is an ode to love and community, offering a glimpse into intimate, underexposed South African marriage ceremonies. The weddings and accompanying festivities that Mlangeni has documented as a ‘cameraman’ since 1997, offer an inspiring counterbalance to the stereotypical white wedding. 70 Moving, hand-printed black and white and colour photographs with a poetic, almost mythical quality. For nearly 30 years Sabelo Mlangeni – well known for projects such as Invisible Women, and earlier on show in Huis Marseille in the exhibitions Recent Histories (2019) and Apartheid & After (2014) – has photographed marriages in South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland. The exhibition Isivumelwano is the first to present a large selection of this extensive photographic archive. The photographer captures a wide variety of rituals, traditions and celebrations in intimate images, magnifying ‘the systems we exist in (and against)’. The exhibition was created in collaboration with blank projects in Cape Town.

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