Lisakhanya Ngqoba

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ARTIST CATALOGUE

Indlela nguMthwa/kazi: Ziingcambu

Indlela nguMthwa/kazi: Ziingcambu is an ongoing archival project rooted in alternative photographic processes and oral family histories. Grounded in the intergenerational memory work of myself and my grandmother, the project explores how memory, space, labour, and identity intersect through “roots and routes.” The title refers to travel and is likened to the San people which I pay homage to, and “(Z)iingcambu” refer to roots in the isiXhosa language. Through my family’s tribal and genealogical histories that connect back to the San people, I speak of familial movements across land and time, while negotiating the impermanence of home and the complexities of remembering. 

This work extends from a third-year project, USAPHO: The Repairing, Reimagined, which focused on reinterpreting damaged family photographs using cyanotype printing, sewing, weaving and collage. Water, once the destructive force that smudged a treasured family photo album during a flood, became a symbol of repair, reimagining and transformation. The cyanotype process, activated through sunlight and water, offered both a conceptual and material way to revive and honour these fading memories. The colour blue references not only the element of water which becomes a tool of repair, cleansing, and transformation, but also holds cultural significance in the Mpondomise tradition. In this continuation, the work shifts toward land and landscape as sites of inquiry — physical, metaphysical, and emotional. I retrace familial movements across the Eastern Cape, guided by stories, fragments, and half-remembered names of places passed down through generations. 

The archive is constructed not through institutional documentation but through oral histories, maps, and memory work, which are by nature fragmented, jumbled, and nonlinear – embracing the notion that memory is selective and deeply embodied. The concepts of "roots" and "routes" are central to the practice. Roots refer to the cultural, historical, and genealogical foundations that ground myself — including my Mpondomise, Gcaleka and Gqunukhwebe heritage. Routes trace the physical and emotional journeys taken by family members over decades: from the farms of Khobonqaba, Makati, Qingqolo and Langa in Koonap, to kwaKoti in Vetteweiden, Grahamstown (Makhanda) where we currently reside, and for some of us Cape Town. These journeys are not defined by forced displacement but by generational cycles of labour, marriage, and the pursuit of opportunity. Yet, these movements are not without their disruptions. The work reflects on the vulnerability of home — both as a structure and as a feeling. Photography, here, becomes an act of active remembering. 

Through the use of cyanotype and calotype processes, along with material interventions such as stitching and fabric work, I reclaim the authority to construct my own archive told in mine and my grandmother’s subjective point of view. The use of earthy tones (brown for calotype) references the red ochre and clay, used by the tribes I come from —symbolise warmth, motherhood, tradition, and the body. These materials, often associated with domestic care and cultural belonging, speak directly to the historical and ongoing labour of the women my family. Indlela nguMthwa/kazi: Ziingcambu is a story of searching — not always to find, but to feel. It resists closure in favour of becoming. In the liminal space between remembering and forgetting, visibility and silence, this work asserts that memory is not a fixed point, but a map in motion. Access to the archive — and to the self — becomes an act of choice, care, and love. Here, remembering is not a destination, but a practice.