Uthini uma sekwenzekile?
Walkabout with Lindokuhle Yende and in conversation with Sinethemba Twalo
11 October at 11:00
Uthini uma sekwenzekile? (What do you say when it has happened?) is an intimate photographic series that offers a profound exploration of love, grief and healing after a burn injury. This work follows an exploration of the relationship between self, the body and the world, after experiencing trauma to the body.
Through a combination of film and digital photography, Lindokuhle Yende documents the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of healing. The abstract photographs document not only the visible wound but also the subtle, everyday objects that bear witness to both the injury and the recovery process—mundane items transformed by their association with pain and healing. Symbolic objects that carry spiritual significance are woven throughout the series, revealing the intimate relationship between personal healing, familial healing and spirituality.
The self-portraits reflect the life-changing experience of existing in a body that has sustained trauma and the vulnerability arising from it. As M. Neelika Jayawardane notes, “An injury that leaves visible marks on the body means that the way people relate to us changes. Losing one’s once “seamless” skin and appearance means that one becomes susceptible to prevailing modes of ordinary, everyday expressions of othering and a target for violence. We are no longer seen as powerful, desirable, or even acceptable.” (Jayawardane, 2025).
By inviting viewers to share in this personal narrative, the work seeks to challenge us to reflect on our own experiences of injury and healing, individual or collective - to think about the materiality of vulnerability and recovery, and the ways in which we practice healing.
Sinethemba Twalo is a practitioner based in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are a Lecturer in the Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures department at the Wits School of Arts. Twalo was a founding member of NGO- NOTHING GETS ORGANISED (2016 - 2025). They have contributed and/ or presented work in various platforms including the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018), The 2018 Taktlos Free Jazz festival in Zurich, the 3rd Black History Month Florence (2018), the 32nd Sao Paulo Bienal public programme (2016) and the 8th Jerusalem Show (2016) amongst others. Recent curatorial projects include DIM CORNERS (2024) with Pîvo São Paulo at Museum Africa in Johannesburg, Delay and Encounter and/or Other Proximate Unknowns (2023) at the Foundation for Contemporary Art Ghana and W.E.B Du Bois Center for Pan African memory in Accra, A Vocabulary of Senses (2023) convened by the Creative Knowledge Resources (CKR) at the University of Cape Town and Interfacing New Heavens (2021), with artists-in-labs (ZHdK), at the Javett Art Center at the University of Pretoria amongst other projects. Along with Amy Watson from POOL, Sinethemba is curating the project An Accumulation of Uncertainties which forms part of the World Weather Network - a global coalition of 28 arts agencies around the world formed in response to the climate crisis. Twalo obtained their PhD in Art History at the SARChI in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg.