Passing of Ayesha Price (1975-2024)
The Michaelis School of Fine Art mourns the tragic passing of Ayesha Price who was a dynamic and vital part of our school’s community. Ayesha began teaching undergraduate projects in sculpture at Michaelis from 2019, and embarked on a Master of Fine Art degree in 2022 supervised by Dr Stephane Huigen-Conradie and Professor Jane Alexander, which she completed with distinction this year. Her research project, We Have Lost One Another, culminated in an installation on the vacant land of District Six. This was a complex collaborative project with some of the displaced former residents exploring the possibilities of using visual art as a mediator that “recognises people and land as equal actants in the struggle for social cohesion and social justice” (Ayesha Price 2024, We Have Lost One Another).
Ayesha had maternal links to District Six pre-forced removals and was a resident of the area until her passing. Over the last twenty-five years, she worked there as a teacher and as a volunteer, art facilitator and curator at the District Six Museum. She maintained contact with former residents throughout those years and was well known for her achievements in social mediation through her facilitation of public art projects and workshops, directed to the amelioration of the trauma and alienation created by forcible displacement from District Six. An important example facilitated by her, was created by artists and around thirty ex-residents and relatives aged from four to ninety two, The Flower of Maryam, a flower depicted both open and closed now mounted on the outside wall of the District Six Clinic. Also known as the Rose of Jericho or the Flower of Fatima, they were brought dried from North Africa and the Middle East, and immersed in water by midwives and women to open during birthing. The flower holds the potential for life, “a powerful maternal image that speaks to shared indigenous knowledge and a sense of belonging to a community even through migration and displacement.” (Ayesha Price 2019) https://asai.co.za/an-engaged-practice-ayesha-price/#more-18773
Throughout her career, Ayesha’s commitment was to education, believing art and education to be integral to life. In addition to the District Six Museum, she worked as Senior Visual Art Education Officer at Iziko Museums and principal of the Children’s Art Centre. She was actively engaged in a wide variety of collaborative projects with local and international art & heritage institutions, including Philadelphia University of the Arts, the Kohl’s Children’s Museum and the Lava Kulturhuset Stadsteatern. Project partnerships include site-specific artworks with the Western Cape Government and co-curating the Lionel Davis retrospective exhibition 'Gathering Strands' with Tina Smith for the Iziko South African National Gallery in 2019. She also developed and facilitated programs with the Western Cape Education Department, UCT Irma Stern Museum and the University of Cape Town, and served on the board of the Africa South Arts Initiative (ASAI), a research-focused initiative showcasing artists working on the African continent.
Together with her Masters cohort, Ayesha created the ODDKIN exhibition at the Michaelis Galleries in 2023, a well-received group exhibition showcasing works in progress by MFA and MAFA students. Included in this show was her We Collect Stones (2023) installation.
At the time of her passing, Ayesha was engaged in teaching our first, second and third year students. Described as kind, gracious, gentle, generous, insightful, and a wonderful individual, staff and students have been deeply affected by her absence. For many students at Michaelis, it was through Ayesha's teaching that they found their voices as artists committed to creating for social justice.
We extend our sincerest condolences to her family, friends and colleagues at the District Six Museum during this period of mourning and to the communities across the Cape with whom Ayesha worked closely on matters of collective trauma and displacement.
“I seek to explore and challenge the idea of ‘art’ in its existing forms, conventions and practice, to find and share ways to visually communicate and engage with the art community as well as the uninitiated around issues of power. My intention is always to create a greater sensitivity, and a sense of empowerment and social accountability for local and global issues for those who encounter my work. I concern myself primarily with ‘making’ and ‘time’ as an investigation into social constructs and the role of images therein.”
https://wammuseum.org/artist/ayesha-price/
Colour portrait of Ayesha in studio by Scott Eric Williams
