WeeklySA_AdminCURATED: Four leading contemporary artists come together at the National Arts Festival to interrogate questions of identity, memory, land, sound and belonging in a thought-provoking exhibition…
By WSAM Reporter
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) Art Gallery, in partnership with the MTN SA Foundation and Iziko Museums South Africa, will showcase a compelling new exhibition at this year’s National Arts Festival in Makhanda in the Eastern Cape.
Titled Holding sp(l)ace for the in-between, the exhibition challenges audiences to rethink the uncertainties and possibilities of contemporary life.
It forms part of the 2025–2026 edition of the prestigious MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award (NCA) and will run at the Gallery in the Round and New Gallery at the Settlers Monument from June 26 to July 5. Curated by Amogelang Maledu, winner of the 2025–2026 MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Curator Award, the exhibition brings together the work of four acclaimed contemporary artists — Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Zara Julius, Thato Makatu and Unathi Mkonto — whose practices engage with questions of memory, identity, sound, land, home and collective survival.
Rather than adopting a conventional theme, the exhibition positions contemporaneity itself as a central character, creating a space where audiences can engage with ideas of refusal, transformation and Black feminist thought through diverse artistic forms.
Maledu describes the exhibition as an exploration of negotiation and participation.
“Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between refuses the general framework of themed exhibitions and instead makes contemporaneity a character of the show.
The space holding becomes an open process of negotiating ideas, while the physical place – the exhibition itself – is where intervention and collective participation become possible,” she said.
The participating artists approach the concept of the “in-between” from distinct perspectives.
Johannesburg-born, Amsterdam-based artist Simnikiwe Buhlungu presents an iterative sound installation drawing on gospel traditions and diasporic memory to explore histories of Black mobility and collective listening.
Zara Julius, a Johannesburg-based transdisciplinary artist, employs live instrumentation and layered sonic compositions to investigate breath as both a form of collective survival and an archive of ancestral continuity.
Through paper-based model making, printmaking and installation, Makatu examines themes of home, loss and Black middle-class identity, using artistic play and experimentation as tools of repair and reflection.
Meanwhile, Mkonto, whose work is informed by his architectural background, explores land, agriculture and the built environment through sculptural wooden forms that imagine more sustainable and community-centred futures.
The exhibition represents another milestone in the long-standing partnership between the UJ Art Gallery and the MTN SA Foundation, which has supported emerging artists and curators since 2017.
Re-launched in 2022, the MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award seeks to identify and nurture the next generation of South African curatorial talent by providing institutional support, professional development opportunities and a national platform for innovative contemporary art.
For the organisers, the exhibition reflects a shared commitment to fostering critical artistic practice and creating meaningful opportunities for dialogue around the social, cultural and political realities shaping contemporary South Africa.
As one of the National Arts Festival’s standout visual arts offerings, Holding sp(l)ace for the in-between invites audiences into a space where uncertainty becomes productive, boundaries are questioned and new ways of imagining collective futures emerge.
