Sethembiso Zulu in his exploration of his spiritual connection to the Zion Christian Church presents Ikhaya Lika Moya 2019. A Healer and all-round creative person, he uses his photography to educate and explain to people about the journeys he and many other people choose into Zion Churches. His work navigates through rituals, performances, symbols and sermons conducted at the Nancefield Hostel in Soweto.

Zulu’s work is deeply autobiographical tied to his calling as a healer, the Zion church is part of his Ancestral calling. “In 2005, two months after I left initiation training, I was led to the church where I felt I didn’t need to apologies for my spirituality. The church became a place of refuge and healing for the me,” he says. His interactions with the church and its members informed his photographic explorations into Ikhaya Lika Moya.

In this body of work, shot at a hostel site in Soweto, Zulu takes us through a journey into what binds the people of Zion Church. Located in a makeshift dwelling outside Nancefield hostel, services take place on Sundays. With no clear time, the prolonged processes of the church is cemented by prayer and intercessions into the spiritual realm. Ikhaya lika Moya invites us to bear witness to these journeys.

Ikhaya Lika Moya is part of a trilogy of documenting Zulus spiritual journey through dreams, prayers, interactions and visions. Zulu continues his work into the trilogy. “In my work, I’m purely interested in the spiritual, the representation thereof”.