Concert at Sewefontein

Many who live in places like the sleepy tenant labour community of Bloemhof imagine a better life elsewhere, without the endless toil and drudgery of farm life. Rarely do they get to put their talent on display. Sewefontein is the place to be for anyone who’s worth his or her salt. Here people are offered the chance to sing or perform—or do both. Out of the purview of employers and minders they are free to frolic, mate or get drunk, according to their wish or inclination. It is on weekends like this that shebeens thrive. —Santu Mofokeng

For the longest portion of Santu Mofokeng’s career as a photographer the title Concert at Sewefontein was used to refer to a single image. The photograph in question, depicting four spectral-like young black men in a harshly lit room, has an eerie and confrontational quality as the viewer is met by the unblinking gaze of the central figure, almost completely covered in shadow.

Taken on Friday 11 November 1988 during a two week stay at Vaalrand Farm, Bloemhof, this photograph is one of Mofokeng’s earlier images and is well-known to those familiar with his oeuvre. What was unknown was that this was a single image selected by Mofokeng from the five rolls of black and white film he shot on the night to record a concert organised and performed by the labour tenants from the surrounding area.

It would take just over twenty-five years for the full story of that night to emerge when Santu Mofokeng was introduced to curator, writer and editor Joshua Chuang by Lunetta Bartz of MAKER, Johannesburg. For three years this team immersed themselves in Mofokeng’s archive of over thirty-thousand negatives looking for the untold stories of Mofokeng’s photographic practice.

 Through a rigorous editing process Mofokeng and Chuang distilled the eighteen stories that would be published as Santu Mofokeng: Stories by the renowned photographic publisher Steidl in 2019. One of these stories was a new and expanded interpretation of Concert a Sewefontein; the title was no longer limited to a single image but was rather transformed into a visual narrative comprised of seventeen striking photographs that had never before been reproduced outside of the Mofokeng archive.

This series of seventeen images has been selected by the Santu Mofokeng Foundation, in association with FNB Art Joburg fair, to be included in the 2025 art fair to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the foundations formation. For the first time since they were first taken in 1988 these photographs, documenting a moment of levity within this impoverished farming community during apartheid, will be on public exhibition for all fair goers to view. Not only are these photographs evidence of Santu Mofokeng’s incredible skill as a photographer but they are also a reminder of the legacy he has left behind.