ART(ist) #4
Tshepiso Mazibuko
Tshepiso Mazibuko was born in 1995 in Thokoza in South Africa. She discovers photography in 2012 with the Of Soul and Joy project undertaken by Rubis Mécénat cultural fund.
Her work is inspired by her immediate surroundings. She documents Thokoza by telling stories of people who live close to her, photographing their intimate space.
Tshepiso Mazibuko’s work has been shown in numerous group shows in South Africa and abroad including In Thokoza at the Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg (2013) and Free from my Happiness at the Ghent International Photo Festival, Belgium (2015). She also participated in the Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg (2016), the Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2016) where she is awarded the festival’s first prize. In 2017 she is invited at the World Press Photo Festival in Amsterdam.
She graduates from the Market Photo Workshop in 2016 and receives the 2017 Tierney fellowship awarded by the Photo Market Workshop, which presents a solo exhibition of her work in 2018. The same year, she is granted a bursary from the prestigious Prince Claus Fund. Thsepiso Mazibuko is selected in 2024 for the Louis Roederer Foundation Discovery Award and benefits from an exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles.
Of Soul and Joy is a lasting social and artistic initiative undertaken in 2012 by Rubis Mécénat cultural fund and Easigas (Rubis Group’s South African subsidiary) in Thokoza, a township in the southeast of Johannesburg in South Africa in the East Rand. Its goal is to develop artistic skills in the field of photography amongst the township’s vulnerable youth by providing an understanding of photography as a means of expression, in order to open up new personal and professional horizons. The visual platform and the skills program are brought together in workshops led by renowed photographers. It also fosters encounters with art professionals and the opportunity to participate in art related events both in South Africa and abroad. Each year the most promising students are awarded a scholarship to pursue their studies in photography in a university of their choice, such as the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg.