Nonzuzo Gxekwa (*1981) is a Johannesburg based photographer. Her approach to photography favours the everyday over the spectacular; sharing intimate moments by focusing the camera on what is around her as well as on herself. Whether photographing in the street or in the studio, her work explores the human condition in subtle and beautiful ways.

Her optic is loving. It’s not simply that she chooses to focus on moments of self love—the way people occupy themselves—but that in the taking, her subjects are never wholly circumscribed. There is always space to manoeuvre. Collaboration is a crucial part of her practice, and she regularly works with photographers and other creatives in Johannesburg and further afield.

My project was a portrait series of the people of Schöppingen in their gardens. The project was an interrogation in building relationships as international artists who come to othercommunities using gardens as an entry point to find similarities conversation around nurturing gardens and the relationship humans have with land and plants.