Juliana Caffé
Juliana was born in 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil. She holds postgraduate specializations in Art: History, Criticism and Curating, and in Urban Planning and Environment from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, and a BA degree in Law from the same institution. Currently, she co-curates the Cambridge Artistic Residency, a project which puts forward artistic and cultural proposals in the Ocupação Hotel Cambridge, an occupied building in downtown São Paulo. This project was the recipient of the 2016 APCA award for ‘Urban Appropriation’. She has also worked at Associação Cultural Videobrasil on the programming team which, since 2013, has produced several publications, and two editions of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, amongst other exhibitions. Selected curatorial work includes: Regarding Latin America | Political and Cultural Overview at the Galpão VB, the public program of the Resist, Reexist exhibition, featuring works from the Videobrasil archive.
During the course of this programme at the CCA, Juliana hopes to further her research on visual culture and art proposals that originate in territories that are marginal to the mainstream discourse of the Euro-American axis. A key motivation will be to investigate how these proposals have helped – and still help – to inform modern and contemporary art through an international perspective, as well as question a genealogy that attempts to synchronize the emergence of other geographies into the international scenario with a point in time where contemporary art undergoes a “global shift.”
Laura Chittenden
Laura was born in Cape Town in 1993. She completed a degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2015, majoring in printmaking with interests in both painting and photography. Her final body of work drew inspiration from a large collection of water damaged slides – which she attempted to restore, catalogue, and investigate throughout the year.
In 2016 she travelled for a year – teaching art to children in the Italian alps, working as an artist’s assistant in London, and visiting museums all over Europe and Israel.
Laura’s research interests lie in the intersection of roles between artist and curator, and the myriad manifestations of this interesting relationship. Her family and friends believe she harbours inherent hoarding tendencies, but Laura, instead, likes to see this as a lifelong research project into the poetics of collecting. She hopes this might inform some of her thinking during the year.
Anthony Dawson
Anthony was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1994. In 2016, he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pretoria with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Studies and Art History. During his time at the University of Pretoria, Anthony interned with the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, and has since gone on to become the curatorial assistant at the Goodman Gallery Cape Town.
As a recipient of the Harry Crossley Research Fellowship, Anthony’s research aims to explore the concept of the human body as a medium and subject in contemporary art. He is interested by the ways in which the body is seen as a representational field that can inscribe and be inscribed with meaning and value. For Anthony, this is especially pertinent in relation to the fluidity and construction of gender and sexual identities. He intends for his research to focus on artists whose practices work with the aesthetics of the body as a complex holding of visual histories and identities encoded in skin.
Magdaleen du Toit
Magdaleen was born in Paarl in 1995. She graduated from UCT in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Visual and Art History. During her last year at university, Magdaleen started a self-motivated project of assembling a fine art and literary zine named Draft. Draft is sold cheaply at Cape Town bookstores, aiming to question the idea that fine art and literature are exclusive and inaccessible.
During the course of her program at the CCA, Magdaleen intends to explore the current critical reassessment and rewriting of South African colonial history by young South Africans, and the creation of identities and self-representation enabled by challenging the boundaries of identity. She is also interested in exploring ways in which the museum and gallery become more accessible.
Caroline Fowler
Caroline was born in Johannesburg in 1995. In 2016 she graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Drama and English Literature and completing two years in Art History. Studying Drama, English and Art History allowed Caroline to work with three different mediums of artistic expression and finding the parallels between the different practices was something that inspired her application to the Honours in Curatorship Programme. Whilst completing her undergraduate degree Caroline began working as a part-time intern at one of South Arica’s top auctioning houses.
Curatorship and curating the archive have been an interest of Caroline’s as she believes that both practices are focused around the conservation of memory through creative expression. This year she hopes to explore the way in which an artwork has the ability to visually reflect the socio-political context which inspires it.
Güte Immelman
Güte was born in 1988 and grew up in Johannesburg. Having completed her degree in Graphic Design at North West University, in 2010, she started practicing as a designer, focusing on branding and illustration. Upon moving to Cape Town in 2015, she made a more concerted move towards the art world by interning at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery and thereafter started working at David Krut Projects Cape Town.
Through this course, she wishes to explore the art of selection, looking closely at the words used in curation and design and how they have become increasingly vital in a world of information and stimulation overload. Most of us have a panoptic view at our disposal, but what do we do with this data? That with which we actively engage, and experience on a sensory level, is more likely to make a memorable impact. This leads to notions of the post museum, where exhibitions are not limited to gallery walls. It promotes interactivity with the public and communities, as well as with other disciplines through multiple platforms, to serve for a more vibrant and effective cultural experience.
Innocent Langwe
Innocent was born in the Blantyre district of the Southern Region of Malawi. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in education from Mzuzu University which he obtained in 2004. He also holds a certificate in Library and Information Science administered by the Malawi Library Association (MALA). In 2013, he joined the Malawi Institute of Education as a Museum of Education Curator and before that he worked as an Archivist with the National Archives of Malawi.
During the course of the year, as an honours in curatorship student, he would like to explore the archival practices of museums and working with museum collections, especially, focusing on photographs.
Lilith Manz
Lilith was born in 1986 in Hamburg, Germany. Following an affinity for fashion and design she studied Fashion, Costume & Textile Product Design at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in the Design, Media and Information Faculty. She graduated in 2012, holding both a Bachelor and a Masters Degree in Arts majoring in Costume Design.
During her studies she dealt with the theoretical aspects of art and design as well as conceptual and dramaturgical work. The implementation and presentation of her creative work included theater plays, operas, film, photo shoots and art performances, and has constituted to an extensive practical component.
In her professional life she has used her skills in the marketing and commercial area of the fashion industry. Working as a visual merchandiser she developed, planned and implemented promotional projects and campaigns for an international fashion label. Until recently she worked in the field of foreign trade at a fashion sales agency, representing seven international brands.
Being passionate about visiting different countries and cultures, she has taken the opportunity to live and study in the multicultural and vibrant city of Cape Town. During the course of this year she wants to deal with the forms and possibilities of digital exhibitions and work with the interface of different social networks, photo sharing platforms and instant messaging.
Alexandra Martinez
Alexandra was born in Johannesburg in 1994. In 2016 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Psychology and Visual Studies from Stellenbosch University.
Back-grounded by studies in social sciences; the intersection between language, identity and immigration became a centre point of interest for her. This interest developed further towards research purposes when she began thinking about the definitions between immigrant and foreigner and how these start to blur within our evolving social systems. Alexandra wishes to explore these notions within future exhibitions, allowing facets of identity and visibility to be explored within a dialogue of translocation.
Nondumiso Queeneth Nzama
Nondumiso was born in Nanda Township, on the Northern side of Durban, in KwaZulu Natal in 1989. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in information science in 2014 under the Department of Information studies at the University of Zululand.
In 2016 she was part of the Durban Natural Science Museum voluntary programme as a gallery tour guide. She was also a library assistant volunteer at Cato Crest Public Library and an assistant exhibitor at the 2016 Essence Festival for Black letter Media publishers.
In being part of the programmee she would like to gain insight about society’s perception towards museums and the impact of information sources and knowledge conserving centres.
Jase Strauss
Jase was born in 1994 in Johannesburg, but spent most of their childhood being raised in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal. They recently graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, majoring in sculpture. They found inspiration in working with wood on large and ambitious scales.
Jase’s desire to study curatorship is primarily motivated by their concern with regards to the roles museum models and curatorial practices have on ideas around accessibility, education and audience participation within South African museums and cultural and artistic institutions.
They are particularly interested in gaining understanding and exploring the multi-faceted and immersive ways in which museum and exhibition curatorial practices and programming can successfully engage and involve all its varied users, particularly that of the disabled and neuro-divergent population.
Jase is excited to be a part of a body of people who are invested in the development of creating sites that carefully consider peoples’ individual ways of learning and the use of multiple senses in the communication and sharing of the country’s history.
Mmabatho Thobejane
Mmabatho was born in Tembisa Hospital, Johannesburg in 1994. In 2016, she completed a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in finance and economics, at the University of Cape Town.
Her research interests include exploring symbols, images and disciplines of spiritual healing and how they contribute to creating a safe haven for black women who navigate institutions and a world filled with structural oppression. The process of seeing that which you didn’t see before, particularly that which pertains to your existence, is often called coming to consciousness. Coming to consciousness entails a veil being lifted enabling one to see the structures and the ways of the world more clearly, particularly as it applies to their identity. Intersectionality is a tool through which one is able to identify themselves in systems of power, particularly in a white supremacist, ableist, cishetero patriarchal capitalist society, in short: the kyriarchy. Intersectionality practically explains life’s multidimensionality: as much as you are oppressed your identity can be both the source of your oppression and your oppressiveness. Coming to consciousness, while powerful and necessary, is daunting and frightening and can entail a state of deep anger and depression. Realising and accepting that the world is not as you saw it before, there are unseen forces at work which determine your life and available opportunities, given your identity, may induce a sense of powerlessness. The reclaiming of your power can be a deeply spiritual journey. The realisation that you must carve your own way in the world, through your own interpretation and manipulation of the unseen can be a deeply spiritual journey. Mmabatho is intrigued by spiritual disciplines, and the imageries and symbols they use, which facilitate the process of holistic healing. She plans on having her year end exhibition linked to this.
Louisa Viljoen
Louisa was born in Cape Town in 1993 and graduated with a distinction in sculpture and land art at the Visual Art Department in Stellenbosch in 2015. Following her degree, she was awarded two certificates in curatorial studies from the Node CCS in Berlin for art-curation and art-direction, attended several artist residencies abroad and was invited to exhibit her work both at the Virginia Commonwealth University in the US and various cities across Scandinavia.
Her research interests lie in the relationship between art and the public upon observation of art-objects in their simplest form: matter. She aims to research an approach that perceives inanimate objects as possessing agency which in-turn provides for a capacity to attract a certain viewership. The co-ordination of bodies in space and the viewership between art-materials and their audience is therefore of crucial interest to her work. This line of thinking relies on the various states within which art-objects can be perceived and will be investigated within a social structure during her year at the Centre for Curating the Archive.
Rosca Warries
Rosca was born in Cape Town in 1989. In 2008, she completed an International Photography and Story- Telling course. The course allowed her to travel, take people’s portraits and tell their stories. In 2011, she graduated from the University of Cape Town with an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology and Film and Television.
She was employed at Iziko Museums of Cape Town for approximately two years. While working at Iziko she was able to gain experience in as a curatoral assistant, conservation and collections assistant, photographer and videographer. It was this time at Iziko that inspired her to further her studies in curating.
She also curated the Image vs. Truth exhibition. The exhibition allowed her to showcase talent within her community. This leads into her research interests of which her main aim is to understand the role of museum and collection discourses in influencing heritage. She feels that understanding this discourse will allow her to take talented work, and heritage focused stories, and make them relevant to her community, in Bellville South. She wants to do this so that the youth find a sense of belonging in a nation that has lost their stories.
Her aim for the year is to use curating to provide a voice for the silent. She wants to ensure that no one’s heritage is forgotten and that everyone has a sense of belonging.