Sethembile Msezane

Sethembile Msezane (born 1991 in KwaZulu-Natal) is a South African visual artist, public speaker and performer who is known for her work within fine arts. Msezane uses her interdisciplinary practice which combines photography, film, sculpture, and drawing to explore issues focused on spirituality, politics and African knowledge systems. Part of her works focus has been on the process of myth-making and its influence on constructing history as well the absence of the black female body in both narrative and physical spaces of historical commemoration. Msezanes work is held in galleries in South Africa as well as internationally and has won awards and nominations. Msezane is a member of the iQhiya Collective, a network of black women artists originating from Cape Town, Johannesburg and across South Africa. Sethembile Msezane, Signal Her Return III, 2019. In collaboration with Tyburn Gallery. Photo by Tom Morley, courtesy New Art Exchange

Education & Career Although born in Kawazulu-Natal, Msezane was raised in Johannesburg. She later moved to Cape Town, where she attended the Michaelis School of Fine Art to study for a BA in Fine Arts in 2012 and then her Masters of Fine Arts in 2017. Msezanes performances centre on the absence of black women in political and historical landscapes in South Africa. Through her performances she explores the ways in which women are restricted by society in their movement, clothing and figures by using her own body as a human sculpture, dressed in symbolic costume to affirm her importance, existence and role in public spaces.

Msezanes work has been widely recognised globally and features in galleries across South Africa including the Iziko South African National Gallery, Zeitz Mocca and the University of South Africa.

Her work, "Chapungu-the Day Rhodes Fell" (2015) was performed during protests of The Rhodes Must Fall Movement, whilst the John Cecil Rhode Statue at the University of Cape Town was being removed. Msezane stood as a human statue during the event for hours in a performance to reclaim the space. Msezane has used various other South African Public Holidays to perform and address issues that effect youth of today, as part of her "Public Holiday series 2014-2015"