Mpumelelo Buthelezi wins the 2026 Africa Soft Power Climate storytelling fellowship & photo essay prize
The South African photographer leads a group of five young African image-makers whose work begin an international exhibition tour at The Africa Center in New York this September.
South African photographer Mpumelelo Buthelezi has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Africa Soft Power Climate Storytelling Fellowship & Photo Essay Prize for his series titled E Plazini: A Place to Call Home for Waste Collectors. This project highlights the lives of waste pickers in the Dryhook informal settlement near Soweto.
Buthelezi's accompanying text provides a glimpse into a community of around 85,000 people who rely on waste collection and recycling as their primary source of income. The fellowship award grants Buthelezi a $2,000 prize. Four other photographers, Kevin Ochieng Onyango, Brian Ongoro, Vanessa Mulondo, and Nicolas Vava, were chosen as finalists and each receive $500.
All five photographers were tasked with exploring the theme of "Lines of Survival: Living, Adapting, Imagining Tomorrow," which invited artists to document how people across Africa and the diaspora are coping with environmental changes. The five finalists captured a range of environmental challenges, including drought, flooding, fishing, and coastal erosion.
The winning and finalist works will be displayed at The Africa Center in New York until November 1, 2026, as part of a larger international tour.
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