Lonwabo Kilani (1980 - 2025)

The Michaelis School of Fine Art mourns the tragic loss of our alumnus, Lonwabo Kilani. Trained at the Community Arts Project (CAP), Lonwabo’s art and writing remain a testimony to his unwavering commitment to social justice.

Lonwabo was involved in several collaborative projects such as Studio 147 – a research initiative that sought to address post-1994 racial politics. As a long-standing member of Gugulective, an artist collective founded in 2006, he contributed to its pioneering progressive creative interventions tackling economic apartheid and persistent apartheid spatial legacies. He took up leadership positions, notably serving as a board member and more recently chair of the Greatmore Arts Trust. In these collaborations, Lonwabo’s contribution was valued.

At UCT, he will be remembered as an avid reader, a remarkable artist, uncompromising activist and critical thinker who revelled in philosophical explorations of art and politics. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Motion Picture (BAMP) in Directing Animation at AFDA. He completed an Honours in Curatorship at the Centre for Curating the Archive and became a Creative Knowledge Resources fellow for his Masters in Fine Art (MAFA) degree. His innovative Masters thesis, titled “Art, Anti-Blackness and the Language of Protest” (2024), interrogates the limits of scholarship on protest art in South Africa.

His recent article on humanising the Humanities was published in Transformation in Higher Education (2025). Lonwabo’s scholarship enhances the understanding of the continuities between social movements and student protests. His artistic, activist and scholarly work will continue to enliven conversations about the centrality of art and creative practice in political thinking.  

Lonwabo will be sorely missed.