2023 Students

Lara Hanger graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Arts in 2022 and an undergraduate in printmaking. During her time here her theoretical interests were in the reimagining of urban spaces and public navigation, particularly that of foot traffic and where we find moments of intimacy within the urban sphere. Lara has explored these concepts through urban ruins and objects of decay found within Cape Town's urban landscape. Lara’s curatorial interests lie in interdisciplinary modes of knowledge production, collaboration, urban, spatial politics, value production, and curatorial modes of care. Lara’s research aims to develop ways of understanding expressions and experiences of intimacy and loneliness in the city through the ruin-object and collection. Lara is focused on the city as an archive.

Ruby Wilson graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Arts in 2022. Here, her research investigated medical archives, exploring notions of softness, loss, and body politics. Extending her focus to curatorial studies this year, her current research interests are on memory practices, value production in collections, and how to extend curatorial modes of care. Primarily, her research seeks to explore curatorship as a form of storytelling, one that explores how we can soften the distinctions between past, present and future narratives to account for the intangible. Her interest in the curatorship derives from how the curatorial can serve as a meeting place for transdisciplinary intersections to collaborate, in order to expand new possibilities in knowledge exchange.

Vida Madighi-Oghu was born in Nigeria and raised in Luanda, Angola and Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated from Michaelis School of Fine art in 2022 after majoring in printmaking and developing a multidisciplinary artistic practice. Her curatorial research explores the storytelling and knowledge production potential in primarily West African textiles, with a focus on ankara. Within this, Madighi-Oghu seeks to weave connections between mobility, migration, trade and culture production, as well as the greater socio-geopolitical historical narratives linked to the textiles.

Aaliya Dramat (b. 1999, Cape Town) completed her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2021 with a major in photography. She has a strong passion for coloured identity and Cape Malay history, and a deep enthusiasm for the concept of preserving culture, tangible or intangible. This includes her interest in inner city dynamics, including spatial politics and modern-day identity politics within the urban environment of Cape Town. She delves into the complex interplay of social, cultural, and political structures that shape the city's fabric. Aaliya's curatorial approach involves exploring the tangible aspects of art, pushing the limits of conventional presentation, and inviting viewers into transformative encounters with the artwork. She embraces innovative ideas that challenge traditional boundaries, such as breaking the binds of the wall and frame in order to explore the idea of a more immersive exhibitionary space.

Aiden Nel studied at Rhodes University, completing his undergraduate degree in classical history and psychology, his honours in Classical history and an MA in Classical History for which he received a distinction in 2021. Aidens has a deep passion for history, artefacts and the countless stories about human ingenuity that can be uncovered through its exploration. His MA thesis focused on comparative mythology and its value for studying diverse cultural figures. It focused on the Greek mythic character Hermes and engaged with figures from myths and folktales worldwide, such as figures from North America, Scandinavia and Africa. Before joining the 2023 Honors in Curatorship course, Aiden wrote historical articles for an online history website called The Collector. Through the study of curatorship, Aiden hopes to explore alternative methods for representing current society and its respective history, and hopes to find a way to connect the past with contemporary social issues and use it to help fill knowledge gaps within and outside the institution.

Erin Sweeney was born in Johannesburg and completed their undergraduate degree in Fine Art and English Literature at the University of Cape Town in 2021. Both their artistic practice and academic interest considers the role of the gaze in social politics, value systems, and knowledge production.

Miracle May majored a Masters in Indigenous Knowledge Systems completed her research in 2022 at the university of North West Mafikeng Campus, she had her focus on museum studies, artefact preservation and curation of African and indigenous artefacts in an indigenous scholar’s perspective. Miracle is a Rare Diseases South Africa Ambassador of Moebius Syndrome and a disability rights activist. Studying BA Honours in Curatorship will broaden her understanding of what curatorship is and develop her skills to curate indigenous and previously marginalised communities’ artefacts in museums with the correct knowledge and ethics. She also aims to make museums inclusive for people living disabilities and enjoy museum spaces as much as she does.

Filipa Dos Santos grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the University of Johannesburg, specialising in Painting and Art History in 2022. Her interest in artist book productions probed curatorial associations, with the merging of words and imagery, inserting the library as an influence. In this way the poetics of narrative became integral to her curiosity in curation, and its unfolding in space. Following this undertaking her current research interests expanded within the realization of the archive’s documentation in relation ecological – environmental contexts. Seeking to investigate notions of labour within commercialised settings in relation to the politics of land, to de-homogenise units of production appearing as identical.