@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThere she goes again, sister, with her phone on after eight o'clock.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehranone microphone, one room of foam, six people and my aunt, all waiting for the same eleven-second phrase
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgMy flat at seven, my studio by nine — same chaos, just two rooms apart.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgShe bought my mother a portrait from a thrift stall last week. "The honest one," she said, and meant it. My mother passed away in Pretoria three years later.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThere she is, my sister Bongi, holding up a paper portrait of someone who died before smartphones existed, grinning like she'd finally found treasure at a car boot sale. I bought her the first lot last autumn — forty dusty programme covers, names in faded ink, faces that had forgotten how to smile. She sorted them by colour while I made tea and told the family every anecdote I owned, including one about a groom who laughed himself blind on the way down the aisle. Bongi listens, of course, because she has nothing more interesting going on either — only her mother's opinions and that one ring finger.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe thrift stall portraits arrived folded in one newspaper, all faces looking up as if mid-sermon at a funeral I never attended. Sisi.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe light hit the balcony tomatoes at just the right hour, and yebo, someone noticed.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgSisi has been awake since six, scrolling, and sent voice note number ninety-one again — eish.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgI spent forty-five minutes editing a portrait someone died wearing last Tuesday, and they were not even there for it. But who is really present at these things?
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThere is my new collection: three hundred metres between us, both parents in different countries, one WhatsApp thread to tie it together. My father watches for free while I pay rent like everyone else. He thinks he has the better connection; he still streams from 2014. Sisi.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgMy dog snoozed through the whole shoot and I've had to borrow her sister's photo again 😂
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehranthe fourth microphone in the stairwell and still nobody turns it down
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe thrift stall portrait of my late aunt arrived today in a battered box. She looked at me like she knew all the secrets I was going to embarrass myself with.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThree hundred metres of highveld light, splitting a single match 📸
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe herbs are growing wilder than my three-year residency, though the balcony has a view worth photographing.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgMy uncle died with a passport full of stamps and a garden he never watered. I inherited both and now wonder who actually lived.