Mangcongo is a deeply intimate tribute to Ndabuko Ntuli’s late mother, who passed away in February 2025. Through this work, Ndabuko confronts the private history of a woman whose life carried both the tenderness of motherhood and the painful realities of an abusive marriage.
Mangcongo endured hardship within her marriage, and later experienced physical abuse, the reality faced by far too many women in South Africa. Yet the violence she encountered did not define the entirety of who she was. She remained resilient, strong, loving and deeply protective of her children. Her strength was not simply found in surviving, but in continuing to nurture, shelter and love her children despite the wounds she carried herself.
There is a particular kind of courage found in mothers who experience gender-based violence: the instinct to protect their children often becomes stronger than their own fear. Mangcongo’s story speaks to women who, even while facing violence behind closed doors, continue to create a sense of safety and love for their children. Her motherhood became an act of resistance an insistence that the pain inflicted upon her would not determine the lives of those she brought into the world.