Before the Covid 19 lockdown in 2020, two friends and I had planned to go to Dakar for the art biennial. But after it was cancelled we had to cancel our plans as well. This year, since I have been living in Niger, I decided that my birthday would be…

If you are in Cape Town, please go by the Zeitz Mocca at the V&A Waterfront to get a copy of Home Is Where The Art Is. I contributed an essay to this book in the form of a love letter to Cape Town. The exhibition (which followed the long…

Some time ago, Nkuli Mlangeni-Berg asked me to contribute an essay to a publication she was putting together called Lesela. I wrote an essay about my late mom. I am literally counting the days till I next see Nkuli so I can get my hands on a copy and read…

The black writing on the floor reads “unsettled”. As one steps over it, the names of four participating artists are seen written on the wall to the right: Bronwyn Katz, Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja, Nolan Oswald Dennis and Zayaan Khan. A few paces further the writing states “Curated by Greer Valley”. The…

Artist Lawrence Lemaoana on coding narratives into textiles and his uneasy relationship with the art world. Picture this scene: A toddler is trailed by his mom and dad as he plays in the gardens of an iconic art museum in Paris. The three of them are on the grass behind…

Photographs by David Southwood via Douglas & Company website. Derek White was only in his second year of college when he “started vetting architects” for his future home. “That’s when I met Liani — I don’t know if we would have been friends if we didn’t share a sense of…

The women in Sethembile Msezane’s work demand your attention. They stand, on top of mountains, on plinths in the middle of Rhodes Must Fall crowds. They wake up on beds in the middle of a field. They stand defiantly with their fists up on public holidays; ring large bells to…

How the Sankara Rug became a comfort away from home. The lockdown was only meant to have lasted for 21 days. At the time, there were only 61 recorded positive coronavirus cases in South Africa. In announcing the national state of disaster on March 15, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that…

WESTRIDGE Senior Secondary School in Mitchells Plain seems an unlikely birthplace for South Africa’s graffiti movement, but in the late 1980s, that’s what it became. The school provided the first canvases for young, frustrated graffiti artists who wanted a space in which to express themselves.Graffiti artist Falko is one of…