The space between V: Community, 2026
Photography and digital montage, Edition 2 of 5
42,5 cm x 52,5 cm
Artist’s Statement
The space between V is a digital photograph documenting an installation environment constructed to investigate the emotional distance between leaving and returning to a childhood community. A rusted corrugated iron sheet is mounted on the wall. A washing line stretches across the space, hung not with clothes but with unconventional objects: a chair, a broom, a shovel. A strip of sand runs through the studio, with a hand-piled sand pit at its centre.
The artist has digitally montaged duplicates of himself into the scene, creating multiple selves engaging with the space and objects. They move together, work together, like a small community. This investigative performance represents something the artist lost when he left his childhood community for urban life: a sense of collective belonging, a loss of ubuntu. By creating versions of himself working in unison, he attempts to reclaim that sense of community.
The space is a reincarnation of his childhood hometown of Letlhabile, brought into his present environment. The work asks: What does it mean to return when nothing, including you, has stayed the same? The artist does not try to close the gap. He sits inside it, making it tangible, inviting the viewer to feel the space between wanting a pure past and accepting that the past is not waiting the way it was left.
