Sakhisizwe Gcina

Sakhisizwe Gcina was born and raised in Queenstown, South Africa. Currently, he is a Curatorial Assistant at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Cape Town, South Africa). Gcina works within the context of a multidisciplinary space for experimental curatorial practice and research which explores under-represented topics and social issues within a contemporary art museum. He has curated Zanele Muholi Faces and Phases and Somnyama Ngonyama/Hail the Dark Lioness; LGBTQI+ Banele Khoza; Owanto: One Thousand Vioces and Dachan: The Art of a Spiritual Era Brightens All Living Things solo exhibitions, including All Things Being Equal, which is the museum’s opening exhibitions in the permanent exhibition galleries and the GrowBox Art Project, a group exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA.

From 2011 to 2013, Gcina obtained a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Film and Media Production at the University of Cape Town (UCT) along with majors in English Literature and Philosophy. While a student he was part of the South African Arts Critics Association mentorship programme (2013) and the Highway Africa Future Journalist’s programme (2012), writing articles about performance art published in the Mail and Guardian and Sunday Independent newspapers, under the mentorship of arts editors Matthew Krause and Mary Corrigall respectively, and reviews of shows at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival.

Gcina studied for a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Degree in Curatorship through the Mellon Foundation scholarship at the Centre for Curating the Archive at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (2014). He received an opportunity to attend the 8th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art. He also completed an African Arts Institute (AFAI) Business of Arts Master Class in the Visual Arts programme.

He has previously worked as an assistant curator for the exhibition The Latent Archive, curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa as part of the World Design Capital (2014) pop-up store. Gcina was an AVA Gallery board member and participated at the Cape Town Art Fair (2015) in a panel discussion about “Afrofuturism” while an Artist Representative at Infidels Creative agency. He has also worked in the fashion industry as an International Model Liaison at D&A Model Management (2015-2017) and his first job when he arrived in Cape Town was an editorial and fashion internship at GQ magazine South Africa (2011).