Siyabonga Mahlaba is a South African visual artist and photographer from Bethlehem, Free State. His work addresses how ideologies inform architecture, drawing from his background and upbringing in Bethlehem. The focus of his current project is the Dutch Reformed Church structures in his hometown and the broader South Africa. In an ongoing series of works, Mahlaba considers how racial disparities are represented and entrenched by the structure and condition of church buildings.

Through careful documentation and visual analysis, Mahlaba examines how architecture can function as a silent, enduring record of social and political history. His photographs move beyond the buildings themselves, using their form, placement, and upkeep as evidence of deeper systemic inequalities that continue to shape South African towns long after apartheid's formal end. By focusing on the Dutch Reformed Church, an institution historically tied to South Africa's political and religious history, Mahlaba unpacks how physical spaces can reinforce ideology, memory, and power long after their original context has shifted. His practice sits at the intersection of art, sociology, and history, positioning photography as a tool for critical inquiry rather than simple observation. Through this lens, Mahlaba invites viewers to reconsider familiar structures within their towns and cities, revealing the ways architecture continues to speak, often unconsciously, to the ideologies that shaped it.