Onobuhle – beauty contest

In the title of the exhibition Nogolide: Sentimental Value, I am making reference to my family photo album which I discovered with no photographs inside. I treat the photo album as a sentimental object that holds memories, personal experiences, and histories. A more in-depth focus in the body of work presented in Nogolide: Sentimental Value is based on remembering as a reflection and response to the past while an unfolding of tender intimacy is evoked and felt in the present. Nogolide was my neighbor in Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape. I have this one memory of Nogolide asking me to enter a beauty contest. It’s a memory that has played itself out whenever I look at photographs of myself as a young girl. I created Onobuhle (Beauty contest) as a significant memory and story I heard myself tell it again and again - to construct self and explain something about myself (through journaling as well).