In the series Swaratlhe studies evolving landscapes and spotlights the social inequities endured by indigenous people of South Africa as exhibited by the racial disparities between living quarters designed for European and Non-European South Africans.

Swaratlhe’s photographic works capture fleeting moments of tranquillity within urban communities while shedding light on the socio-political struggles they face. Recently, he has turned his lens towards the NE 51 houses (Non-European houses of 1951) in Soweto, otherwise known as “matchbox houses,” which were the result of segregation embedded research conducted by the National Building Research Institute between 1948 and 1951.

Soweto stands at the epicentre of Swaratlhe’s works, not only for its notable connotations as the country’s largest black urban complex due to redlining, but also as it links to the artist’s own upbringing.

“Growing up in a 4-roomed house I have experienced [first-hand] black life and how 4-roomed houses played a role in history… as such I’ve recently found myself cycling around the township as a ‘flâneur’ (a French term used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to identify an observer of modern urban life). I saw [more and more] people renovating their 4 roomed houses so I developed research on township architecture using pseudo-scientific deadpan photography as my practice. In conjunction with that I also outsourced some information from Douglas Calderwood’s thesis about NE51”, Swaratlhe reflects.