From 3 September to 3 October 2026, October Gallery presents a dual exhibition that moves between cultural inheritance and imaginative reinvention. In the main space, South African artist Zana Masombuka shares selected photographic works drawn from multiple series rooted in her Ndebele culture. In the gallery’s second space, Spotlight: Benji Reid offers a concentrated look at the award-winning photographer and multi-disciplinary artist whose images feel like theatre paused at its most impossible moment.
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Together, the exhibitions invite viewers into richly layered worlds where identity is not fixed, tradition is not static, and the image becomes a place to question what we think we know. Masombuka’s photographs explore identity, culture, modernity, and ritual through the perspective of a 21st-century Ndebele woman. Presented as a dynamic selection across bodies of work, the exhibition brings together images from Nges’rhodlweni: A Portal for Black Joy, Ubonani: What Do You See?, Time: Gadesi S’khathi, Proudly South African, Namba S’khambe, and her recent series Akhulumile Amabhudango: Scenes from Dreams – “Journeys with Kosabo”.
A key highlight comes through Nges’rhodlweni: A Portal for Black Joy, inspired by the sacred gathering space within the Ndebele household—a place where generations come together through art. In Masombuka’s hands, the domestic becomes ceremonial, and the photograph becomes a threshold: a way of holding joy, memory, and continuity without smoothing away complexity.
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Benji Reid describes himself as a “Choreo-Photolist”—a term he coined to capture his singular practice where theatricality, choreography, and photography converge. His work often centres on self-portraiture, but not in the familiar sense. Reid’s images are composed in anti-gravitational poses, staged with a medley of props, and charged with a physical intelligence that makes the frame feel alive. .
In July 2023, Reid premiered Find Your Eyes, a performance that folded dancers and photography into a live, image-making event—creating photographs in real time in front of an audience. The production went on to be presented at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2024, before touring internationally, including performances at Sadler’s Wells, London in 2025. In Spotlight: Benji Reid, that same sense of invention is palpable. The photographs pull viewers into a different dimension—one where the body becomes architecture, emotion becomes staging, and the impossible is treated as a serious artistic language.
Across both exhibitions, the imagery moves between inner and outer landscapes, offering realms dense with imagination and feeling—work that doesn’t simply ask to be viewed, but to be entered.
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On Saturday 19 September 2026, Benji Reid appears in conversation with Jarelle Francis, Curator and Founder of Meadow. Taking place at October Gallery (Ground Floor) from 3.00 pm to 4.30 pm, the talk offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from Reid about the ideas, inspirations, and conceptual framework behind the works shown in Spotlight: Benji Reid. For audiences interested in the tension between performance and stillness in his images, this intimate discussion promises greater context.
For further information on the exhibitions, please visit the October Gallery website.
Image, courtesy of the artists, provided by October Gallery
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