Julia Kabat
Julia Kabat was born in Cape Town in 1992. In 2015 she graduated with distinction in a Printmedia major at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. As an undergraduate Fine Art student working with the dual medium of printmaking and sculpture, Julia was concerned with the imaginative representation of objects, transforming conventional perceptions surrounding their utilization and appropriation.
In 2015 Julia curated the show ‘A Night to Celebrate Africa’ in conjunction with the HSC at the Centre for African Studies Gallery (University of Cape Town). That same year, she was awarded the ‘Directors Special Award’ from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in acknowledgment of her contribution towards student leadership.
During this year, Julia’s interests will continue with her research regarding objects, their uses, forms, and trajectories as tools of narration and methods of ‘object –tion’. The way in which artists utilize objects, will inherently express what they ‘object’ to or critically comment on, within the theme of literal and metaphorical disjunction in South Africa at large. This line of thinking, arguably, aligns to that of the history and function of the archive. A similarity can be drawn between the archive and the use of objects of ‘objection’, as they draw one to the necessity of ‘looking’ at the ordinary to reveal and remark on the extraordinary.
Amohelang Martha Mohajane
Amohelang Martha Mohajane was born in Mothotlung, a small village in the North West province, in 1986. She completed her BTECH in Fine and applied Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology in 2012. From 2013 to 2016 she worked at the Constitution Hill Development Company as a tour guide. During this time she, also, completed a certificate in managing labor relations with Digital Campus as well as a certificate in Curating with the University of the Witwatersrand.
She has curated pop-up exhibitions, such as, The Green Art Festival and a women’s month celebration exhibition with the Constitution Hill Development Company.
During the course of the year she would like to explore the archival practices of museums and their heritage sectors. She is also interested in investigating the quality of museum education.
Daniel Rautenbach
Daniel Rautenbach was born in Johannesburg in 1992 and studied a BA majoring in Visual and Art History and Spanish. He has worked for artists such as Peet Pienaar and Markus Wormstorm and was on-board as a designer for Art Africa Magazine. As he currently works as a freelance graphic designer he is interested in the intersection of creative direction and identity politics.
During the course of his programme at the CCA, he intends to explore uses of digital media in museum exhibits, particularly in questioning notions of the Post-Internet and how it influences the constructed museum space.
Elize de Beer
Elize de Beer was born in Pretoria in 1993. She recently graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Arts with a BA in Fine Arts, majoring in Printmaking. Her interests in printmaking led to her wanting to expand her practical skills and, so, she did internships at Warren Editions and David Krut Projects. Her final body of work for her BAFA looked at language and how it functions in relation to Dyslexia and other visual learning disabilities. It looked at how language is fundamentally an abstract visual form when the meaning of words and languages are inaccessible.
Her research interests lie in expanding these ideas of how language functions visually, relating to art, reading, books and learning disorders. As well as, how people can experience language in various ways when looking at these written forms from a different perspective. During the course of the year she is eager to think more as a curator and, about, what her role is in relation to, also, being an artist. She looks forward to thinking about, how, the course offers her the opportunity to look at art from a different angle and to see the possibilities of interpretation that exist within art and artefacts.
Twahiru Sabuni
Twahiru Sabuni was born in the eastern part of Tanzania. In 2010 he graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine and Performing Art. He has four years experience in the creative industry since joining Nafasi Art Space, a contemporary visual art space based in Dar es Salaam, where he worked for the programme department and did event management.
During the course of the year he would like to explore other creative sectors as they relate to contemporary art and curatorial skills and experiences. He is interested in studying the participation, experience and expectations of African galleries, artists and art spaces.
Marc Smith
Marc Smith was born in Kempton Park in 1992, but considers himself a Capetonian, at heart, as his family moved down to the city when he was only four years of age. An avid interest in the broad spectrum of visual culture saw him graduate from the University of Cape Town, in 2015, with a Bachelor Arts in Media and Writing and Visual and Art History, receiving a distinction for the latter. His other interests lie strongly in the fields of curatorship, art history, design, branding, film and visual studies, as well as the ways in which spaces convey meaning and influence visitors.
During the course of his programme at the CCA, he intends on exploring the ways, and means, by which curatorial practice, can more accurately engage with a public in search of more stimulating and immersive experiences. Inspired by his exposure to theories and practices of production design, he also hopes to further analyse how spaces might be manipulated in order to amplify, and contribute, towards a particular exhibition in similar ways to that of the filmic principles of mise-en-scène, whereby its construction can express certain qualities and influence a viewer’s perception of an environment, character or object.
Ruwadzano (Ruzy) Rusike
Ruwadzano (Ruzy) Rusike, born 1992 in South Africa, is an artist and aspiring curator and art broker, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand. Full of passion for learning and becoming a creative contributor, and broker, in the business of visual arts, Rusike works at The Southern African Foundation of Contemporary Art (NGO) as well as this, she is also, an intern at Gallery MOMO.
Politics, fashion, music and art and how they are assimilated and negotiated within society have always inspired Rusike’s work. Readings such as those by Steve Biko, Achille Mbembe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are of importance to her as they speak to her responsibility as an artist and curator. During the course of the year, as an Honours in Curatorship student, Rusike intends to always question, confront and curate what had not been curated, and juxtapose these to what has.
Carly Schultz
Carly Schultz was born in Cape Town in 1994. In 2015 she completed her Bachelors of Social Sciences in Religious and Classical Studies at the University of Cape Town.
During her time as an Honours in Curatorship student she wants to explore the importance of colonial art, and history, to find ways in which these can be appreciated in a previously colonial context, such as South Africa, where they carry only negative connotations and are often met with hostility.
Viola Makin
Viola Makin was born in Pretoria. During her spare time she gave guided tours of Wits Art Museum where an interest in African, as well as contemporary art, was sparked. This led to doing a semester at the University of Witwaterstrand on ‘Curating Exhibitions: the Politics & Aesthetics of Display’. She also completed an internship at the Johannesburg Art Gallery – where a collaborative curated exhibition entitled ‘Condition Report’ culminated the project.
In the business world her expertise is in International Strategy and Governance, with a career that has included being a senior academic, director, non-executive director, management consultant and owner of her own business. Her first degree was a Bachelor of Arts in Drama and Psychology and her most recent a Doctorate in Business Administration.
During the course of this year she hopes to further build on her curatorial knowledge, as well as developing a special interest in art authentication.
Heinrich Groenewald
Heinrich Groenewald was born in Worcester in 1991. After completing his Bachelors in Fine Art at the University of Stellenbosch, majoring in printmaking and drawing practices, Heinrich continued his studies and completed his Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development at the Sustainability Institute – an affiliate institution to the University of Stellenbosch. Thereafter he ventured to Taiwan to be an English teacher and practicing artist for a year.
This year, Heinrich’s research and curatorial practices will be guided by his interest in the unconventional presentation of objects in order to make art relatable to the cultural needs of those that do not have access to the problematic “privileged cultivation” that usually determines how art should be perceived. He seeks playful yet intimate solutions for object-displays through transdisciplinary social engagement that brings the arts to other disciplines in order to create a space that tries to understand the complexity of place and context by broadening the complexity of its own engagement.
Sue Kaplan
Sue Kaplan grew up in the Eastern Cape. She studied at the Cape Town Technicon (1979), completed a BAFA at UNISA (1998), an Art Therapy Foundation course (2003) (ATC) and an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (2004) at the University of Witswatersrand. She graduated cum laude with an MAFA from Wits University in 2008.
She relocated back to Cape Town from Johannesburg in 2011 after a year in Central and South America. She has worked in drug addiction centres as a creative arts therapist as well as a facilitator at Pollsmoor prison and continues to teach and work from a small studio. She is also currently involved in the implementation of a pilot project for an integrated creative arts programme.
She aims to extend her interest in participatory practices with displaced people, during her year at the CCA, and hopefully beyond. The synergy of the current crisis will hopefully find an intersection (and merging) of our (visual, oral and written) conversations. The degree also has the potential to broaden her own practices as an artist, which are shaped by her continuing education.
The multiple narratives in her life where she lives as a teacher, artist and parent, act as catalysts for each other, framing her points of consideration and creating a chaotic palimpsest of images: heroes, villains, wind and sea all jostle for centre stage.