Gugulethu Ndlalani

Gugulethu Ndlalani is a self-taught visual artist and photographer from Soweto, South Africa.

His work is deeply influenced by the cultural richness and lived experiences of his hometown, a place rooted in resilience and layered histories.

As the creative director of Brokenvillages, a collaborative storytelling project, Gugulethu focuses on narratives that center the African experience—particularly the interior lives of Black individuals navigating faith, identity, and emotional inheritance.

The photographs featured in Shadow and Sax are from his collection "Pain Through Belonging," a conceptual portrait series exploring his mother’s relationship with a religious group that brought both pain and a profound sense of identity.

Ndlalani also explores the dual nature of choice and belonging, emphasizing that despite external influences, his mother ultimately had to make her own decisions and carve out a place for herself within the community.

This series also engages with the emotional aftermath of his parents’ divorce, revealing the tension between sorrow and relief.

Through this lens, Gugulethu documents the tender and conflicting spaces between belief and betrayal, rupture and connection.

His photographs speak not only to personal memory, but also to a collective search—for home, for meaning, for oneself.