Street Scene - Rockville
- Artist: Santu Mofokeng
- Date: c.2004, printed 2011
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: image: 298 x 450 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Street Scene – Rockville” by Santu Mofokeng, a black‑and‑white gelatin silver print from his Billboards series. Captured around 2004 and printed in 2011, it shows a billboard advertising consumer goods set against the everyday life of a South African township. Mofokeng, who grew up in Soweto, uses these images to show how advertising promises a better life while the reality of post‑apartheid society remains complicated. He famously said that words like “freedom” once landed you in jail, but today they’re shouted from a mall’s sign. The photo invites us to notice the tension between the glossy promises on the billboard and the people going about their routines. It’s a quiet reminder of the power of images in shaping hope and expectation.
See it in person
Street Scene - Rockville is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
