Sibusiso Bheka, winner of the Institut français x Cité internationale des arts residency programme, is a young self-taught South African photographer.

Sibusiso Bheka was born in Thokoza, a township to the east of Johannesburg whose name means "place of peace" in Zulu. However, this neighbourhood is plagued by a multitude of dysfunctions, associated with crime and poverty, dating back to the beginning of the apartheid segregation laws.

Sibusiso Bheka has exhibited at the AKKA - Also Known As Africa Fair (Paris, France, 2023) for the Afronova gallery, as well as at the Nekubi space (Kavala, Greece, 2023), the OSJ Photo Fest (Johannesburg, South Africa, 2022) and the Bristol Photo Festival (Bristol, UK, 2021). He also took part in the Of Soul and Joy programme (Arles, France, 2020), a photography learning platform developed by Rubis Mécénat.

As a nocturnal photographer, the artist navigates between dream and danger, a reality that is visible in his work. Ekoneni illustrates this duality. The red light is that of an ambulance dispatched after a knife attack near a shebeen.

Light is important in Sibusiso Bheka's work. In Intliziyo, among other works, he reveals the language of apartheid infrastructure. The powerful orange light is generated by lighting on pylons inherited from a past of hyper-surveillance of black populations.

For his residency project in Paris, the artist drew inspiration from memories of his childhood and adolescence. He remembers watching films through the windows and half-open doors of neighbours with television sets, using his imagination to reinvent the dialogue or missing images.

By photographing his subjects without precise resolution, Sibusiso Bheka recreates these viewing conditions, sowing the seeds of confusion between imagination and the perception of reality.

Sibusiso Bheka's body of work challenges the preconceived and simplistic ideas associated with Johannesburg's second largest black township. By showing contrast, the artist highlights the resilience and hope that transcend the complexities of South African society.