Nontobeko Ntombela
Nontobeko Ntombela is a member of staff at the History of Art and Heritage Management Department at Wits School of Art.
Nontobeko’s research synopsis in her own words:
”My research project investigates the relationship between the concept of refusal and biomythography in the work of visual artist Valerie Desmore. The aim is to explore and analyse the rejections Desmore faced in South Africa and London, which not only led to her exile in London, but also her career change from visual arts to fashion and back to visual arts again. In so doing, it interrogates the extent to which the artist’s own choice to reciprocally reject that which rejected her, has, in turn, disrupted known workings of historical art exclusions. In other words, the research explores how Desmore's leaving and returning to visual arts, as a form of self-determination, self-authorship and voice, complicates the often simplified understandings of South African Modern Black1 artists as passive participants in the making of their careers; always as discovered subjects. The thesis, therefore, meditates on a self-authorship that enables newer understandings of art history, which in turn stresses a different kind of canon, one that centres the artist’s agency as a prerequisite for any undertaking of art-historical writing. By examining the work of one artist, a woman artist, it asserts a particular positionality for South African Modern Black women artists more broadly.”
Thokozani Mhlambi
Dr Thokozani Mhlambi is not your usual musician. Not only does he play the cello, sing and compose his own songs, but Mhlambi uses his art and exhibitions in order to convey African stories/philosophies.
Born in Madadeni, KwaZulu-Natal, after fulfilling music studies in South Africa & Sweden, Mhlambi received his Phd in Music at the University of Cape Town. In South Africa, he has showcased work at leading platforms such as the National Arts Festival, Baxter Theatre, Soweto Theatre and most recently the State Theatre in Pretoria—where he drew audiences from all walks of life. He has also been a visiting lecturer at universities in Finland (Jyvaskyla), Brazil, to mention a few. And has had opportunities to perform and speak in places such as New Orleans (Tulane), São Paulo, Maputo (Mozambique), New York and Vancouver (Canada). Recently he was an invited contributor to the roaming academy of the Dutch Art Institute, an itinerant program fostering a variety of creative practices at the intersection of art & theory.
In 2019, he collaborated with revered Chinese visual artist Dachan, in a live performance/installation at the Zeitz Mocca Museum in Cape Town. In 2020, Mhlambi was selected as an Artist in-Residence at Cite International Des Arts in Paris, supported by the Institut Francais. He used the time to connect with artists from different parts of the world, and more specifically the African continent, and to develop new creative work.
In his research activities, he is interested in the archive of ‘early African Intellectuals as Composers’, which includes the likes of Enoch Sontonga, John & Nokutela Dube, Reuben Caluza, to mention a few. He also has an interest in precolonial African artistic-crafts specialists, as part of the Re-centring AfroAsia: Musical & Human Migrations project at UCT.