exhibition – Odalisque

“Democracy as Myth”: Lebohang Kganye on Stories, Homes, and Hidden Promises

Saskia Clarke / April 22, 2026

“Democracy as Myth”: Lebohang Kganye on Stories, Homes, and Hidden Promises text Jeffe Lingier On March 6, Fotografiska Stockholm opened Le Sale ka Kgotso, a new installation created for the museum by South African artist Lebohang Kganye. The exhibition transforms the space into an immersive house-like environment where photography, sculpture, and architecture come together. At its centre are full-scale reconstructions of RDP houses, built as part of South Africa’s post-apartheid housing program introduced in 1994. For many, these homes came to symbolise hope and a new beginning. Through images, objects, oral histories, and folktales, Kganye explores the home as both a place of intimacy and a space shaped by memory and history. photography Saskia Clarke Jeffe Lingier : The title Le Sale ka Kgotso carries a double meaning. What does it refer to? Lebohang Kganye : The phrase comes from Sesotho and roughly translates to “stay in peace.” Traditionally it is something people say when leaving someone’s home – almost like a farewell blessing. But I once heard a story from my aunt that completely changed how I understood the phrase. According to some beliefs, when someone says Le Sale ka Kgotso, they might actually be leaving behind an evil spirit in the house. When the person who stays replies “thank you,” they unknowingly accept it. That idea fascinated me – how a small shift in language can completely transform meaning. It became a metaphor for the exhibition. Sometimes what appears hopeful or peaceful on the surface can hide something much more complex underneath. Why did you choose RDP houses as the central element of the installation? RDP houses were introduced in 1994 as part of a housing program meant to address the inequalities created by apartheid. Across South Africa they became strong symbols of hope and the promise of a new life.For me the house became a powerful metaphor. A home is a deeply personal space where memories, relationships and identities are formed. But it is also shaped by political structures and social realities. Who has access to housing and land is never neutral. By recreating these houses in the exhibition, visitors can physically move through that environment. The house becomes a space where personal histories and national narratives meet. photography Lebohang Kganye JL : Why did you choose RDP houses as the central element of the installation? LK : RDP houses were introduced in 1994 as part of a housing program meant to address the inequalities created by apartheid. Across South Africa they became strong symbols of hope and the promise of a new life.For me the house became a powerful metaphor. A home is a deeply personal space where memories, relationships and identities are formed. But it is also shaped by political structures and social realities. Who has access to housing and land is never neutral. By recreating these houses in the exhibition, visitors can physically move through that environment. The house becomes a space where personal histories and national narratives meet. JL : Your work often begins with family archives and photographs. How did that process start? LK : It began after my mother passed away in 2010. A few years later, while studying photography in Johannesburg, I started looking through our family photo albums. I noticed that many photographs of my mother were taken when she was around the same age that I was at that moment. That created a strange sense of connection across time. Many of the clothes she wore in those photographs were still in her wardrobe, so I began revisiting the places where the images had been taken and restaging them, wearing the same clothes and recreating the scenes. That personal project eventually grew into a much larger exploration of my family history. I started tracing my surname and travelled across South Africa to meet relatives I had never met before, collecting photographs and recording their stories. Through that research I also realised that many traditional family histories focus primarily on the male lineage. In South African culture, praise poetry connected to surnames often traces the line of male ancestors. But many of the stories I was hearing came from the women in my family, especially my grandmother. They were the ones who preserved the memories, told the stories and kept the family history alive. Because of that, a large part of my work is about bringing those women back into the narrative. Their stories were often overlooked in official histories, but they are essential to understanding the past. photography Andile Buka JL : If you had to describe the exhibition in one sentence, what would it be? LK : Maybe unfulfilled promises. Or perhaps democracy as myth. For me the work reflects the tension between what societies promise and what people actually experience. After apartheid ended, South Africans were promised democracy, equality and housing. Those promises carried enormous hope, but over time people began to question whether they were truly fulfilled. The exhibition explores that gap between expectation and reality, and how those promises continue to shape the present. JL : What do you hope visitors experience when they walk through the exhibition? LK : I hope people take their time in the space and allow themselves to enter the world the installation creates. On one level it is simply about walking through a house and encountering images and stories. But beyond that I hope it encourages reflection about the stories we inherit, the promises societies make, and how those narratives shape the way we imagine the future. If visitors leave the exhibition asking questions about their own homes, their histories and the narratives that shape their lives, then the work has done what it needed to do. Le Sale ka Kgotso is on view at Fotografiska Stockholm from March 6 until October 18, 2026

Art

Florence Montmare’s Synchronicities: A Nocturnal Geometry

Kaat Van Der Linden / February 10, 2026

Florence Montmare’s Synchronicities: A Nocturnal Geometry text Kaat Van Der Linden “I wanted to create a sense of wonder as you enter the space,” says Florence Montmare about her exhibition in Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland. “The compositions of images, projections, reflections, different surfaces, music, and the juxtapositions of simultaneous narratives make up the kaleidoscope, but it never stays the same. That sense of randomness is something I find really exciting,” the Swedish artist explains. Synchronicities brings together works spanning Montmare’s artistic career, allowing moments and pieces that might initially seem unrelated to reveal deeper connections, forming meaningful coincidences and resonances across time. The exhibition opens with the short film Hemkomst, in which Montmare explores themes of migration on the islands she has called home at different points in her life. Bringing together both locals and refugees, the film reflects on themes of identity and home, and conditions of migration and displacement. Moving through the exhibition, it becomes difficult not to notice how many of Montmare’s works engage with broader societal issues. “I don’t do it on purpose, but they are hard to avoid,” she says. “In ‘America Series’, I collect personal histories throughout the USA, and they tend to be directly linked to societal issues.” Throughout her career, Montmare has explored a wide range of recurring themes, including displacement and belonging (It Happens in the Meeting), the hopes and dreams of strangers (America Series), time and memory (Illuminations), the elemental conditions of landscape and figure (Scenes from an Island), time geographies (Missed Connections), and the origin, cycles, and nature of the self (KRIΣ). images courtesy Florence Montmare Rather than unfolding as a chronological retrospective, Synchronicities follows a more intuitive logic. By abandoning a conventional timeline, the exhibition forms a personal narrative shaped by associations and encounters. “When I started thinking about what I wanted this exhibition to inhabit, I drew a sketch, planning where each work would be placed,” Montmare explains. “As the exhibition came together, I realised that not every artwork was in the right position. The reflections within the works, and the spatial organisation of the pieces, made it clear that the ordering needed to be reconsidered.” Montmare describes the experience of moving through the exhibition as watching a film reveal itself. The works are arranged to suggest a narrative, while still leaving space for the viewer’s own interpretation. Light plays a crucial role in shaping the exhibition’s dreamlike atmosphere. Montmare paid careful attention to the lighting design, changing all of the spots to achieve the desired effect. The spaces between the images are as important as the images themselves, because what is left unseen becomes part of the experience. Carefully chosen indigos and purples create what Montmare describes as a “nocturnal landscape.” On view until March 1, Synchronicities marks a kind of homecoming for Montmare, as she returns to what she does most naturally: choreographing and building intimate spaces. This was one of her earliest practices, and in Synchronicities, these elements are brought together and fully integrated. Within Montmare’s wider practice, this exhibition represents both a pause and a turning point, with the sense of pause being embedded in the experience itself, offering visitors space to slow down and breathe. “Some responses I’ve received say that the work feels meditative,” Montmare reflects. “Which is a given, since many of the works are directly related to, and have grown out of, the practice of meditation. In this sense, it is a pause, yet also a forward movement.”