2025 Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards
South African photographer Vuyo Mabheka has been awarded the Author Book Award at the prestigious 2025 Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards for his debut photobook Popihuise, issued by French publishing house, Chose Commune. The award celebrates the most outstanding photographic publication released between May 2024 and May 2025.
Now in its 55th year, the Rencontres d’Arles festival is one of the most important global platforms for photography, and the Book Awards, supported by the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature, recognise excellence in photographic publishing. Each category winner receives a €6,000 prize. Mabheka’s Popihuise was selected from a shortlist of 123 titles, reviewed by a distinguished pre-jury and final jury of international experts.
Born in 1999 in Libode in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Mabheka now lives and works in Thokoza, Johannesburg. He was first introduced to photography in 2017 through the Of Soul and Joy project, a community-based programme dedicated to equipping township youth with professional photographic skills. Mabheka is currently represented by Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg.
Popihuise (the Xhosa vernacular for the Afrikaans word “pophuis” or “dollhouse”) draws from Mabheka’s personal history to explore the fragility and complexity of childhood in a South African township. The work combines cut-outs of rare childhood photographs with hand-drawn illustrations and staged scenes, often placing the artist himself alongside imagined friends and a faceless, fantasised father figure. These collages inhabit a dreamlike yet conflicted world—one where shiny cars, blossoming trees, and graffiti-covered walls coexist with the harsh visual realities of modern township life: blood, burning tyres, weapons, and silence.
“Popihuise reclaims personal memory while confronting collective trauma,” says Mabheka. “It’s a deeply introspective act, one that helps me rewrite my past and honour the survival of my imagination in the midst of instability.”
Of Soul and Joy project manager Jabulani Dhlamini reflected: “Vuyo’s work is both intimate and expansive. It speaks to the psychological legacies of growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, while offering moments of play, creativity, and profound visual storytelling. We’re immensely proud of what he has achieved.”
This award affirms Mabheka’s place as one of the most important new voices in contemporary African photography. Popihuise will be exhibited throughout the Rencontres d’Arles festival in the dedicated Book Awards venue at Mécanique Générale.
Artist Portrait – Vuyo Mabheka
