How

South

Africa's

creative

sector

is

building

new

pathways

for

artists

Local roots, global reach

Recognition through platforms such as the FNB Art Prize has also helped artists build professional momentum. Johannesburg-based photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa describes the prize as a turning point that anchored his work within South Africa before it drew attention abroad. His black-and-white images focus on township and family life, shaped by memory, loss and everyday rituals. He strives for his work to be intimate without being sentimental, developed around light, shadows and subtle gestures within domestic spaces. Local engagement, he adds, carries a weight that international visibility cannot match, because the work returns to the people and places it depicts.

"It helped me ground the work here, in the place where the stories come from," - Lindokuhle Sobekwa, photographer.