Thoba Calvin and Tshepo Cameron Sithole-Modisane, Pretoria, from the series Kin

Thoba Calvin and Tshepo Cameron Sithole-Modisane rose to international fame in 2013 when they were married in South Africa’s first gay tribal ceremony, uniting Zulu and Tswana traditions. After the abolishment of apartheid in the early 1990s, South Africa became one of the first countries in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Despite this, homosexuals are still overwhelmingly persecuted throughout the country. This photograph belongs to Pieter Hugo’s series Kin, about which Hugo says: “I am interested in the places where [personal and collective] narratives collide. Kin is an attempt at evaluating the gap between society’s ideals and its realities.”

(Jan. 2017)