MBOISA: The irony and anger of beauty in South Africa

In 2014, three photographers; Sipho Mpongo, Sean Metelerkamp and Wikus de Wet, set off on a journey around South Africa in order to discover more about the character of their country 20 years into democracy. They named the project Twenty Journey.

“We are all from different cultural backgrounds and we grew up in different times and different places. So I grew up in Bloemfontein, I’m 25, Sean is 30, he’s from Knysna and Sipho is 21 and he is from Langa. So it is basically a look at South Africa 20 years into democracy. It is the current pulse of South Africa from three different perspectives,” says photographer de Wet.

The three had not been friends before their road trip began, and each set off with a different focus: de Wet looked to discover the relationship between the land and the people who occupy it; Mpongo documented the “born-frees” (those born after the fall of Apartheid in South Africa); and Metelerkamp sought to capture South Africa’s idiosyncrasies.