Sabelo Mlangeni: Other Love Stories | MoMA post

In this text, published on MoMA’s post platform, I take a look at two connected bodies of work by the South African photographer, Sabelo Mlangeni. I primarily focus on an image from Mlangeni’s Isivumelwano series (2003 – 2020), which documents wedding ceremonies and marital festivities throughout South Africa (and also in neighbouring states such as Mozambique, Lesotho, and Eswatini). The photograph, featured in MoMA’s 2026 “New Photography” exhibition, takes note of Mlangeni’s affective, formally astute, and socio-historically grounded imaging of black, queer, working-class southern African life. Traversing visual and political-economic analysis, with a sensitivity to the racial capitalist contradictions present in the regions documented, the text explores the ways Mlangeni’s works materialise capacious textures of love and queerness that go beyond their hegemonic liberal, Global North understandings.

Image: Sabelo Mlangeni. Mbulelo and Friends, Thembisa Township. 2004. Gelatin silver print, 9 5/8 × 14 3/8″ (24.4 × 36.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Judith and Wm. Brian Little Fund. © 2026 Sabelo Mlangeni