On

the

Familial

Turn

in

Photography

As documentary photography is subjected to renewed ethical scrutiny, Ravi Ghosh looks at how artists increasingly turn inward, using personal archives as sites of experimentation.

Sobekwa’s photobook 'I carry Her photo with Me' (2024) also revolves around an edited family photograph, addressing similar themes of estrangement and loss. The artist’s older sister, Ziyanda, left the Johannesburg family in 2002 after Sobekwa was involved in a car accident following a childhood game. He did not see her for 11 years, and she died shortly after her return. Later, in 2017, Sobekwa found a family photograph in which Ziyanda’s likeness had been cut out by their mother, the small portrait having been used for her funeral. Sobekwa’s captions make direct reference to the cut-out image, prescribing it a similarly privileged status: ‘I carry Her photo with me / Ziyanda whose face is / missing in the Family / group portrait she never / take Pictures’.