Senzeni Marasela
°1977, South Africa
Lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Senzeni Marasela is a cross-disciplinary artist who explores photography, video, prints, and mixed-medium installations involving textiles and embroidery. Her work deals with history, memory, and personal narrative, emphasizing historical gaps and overlooked figures. Marasela is part of a generation of post-apartheid female South African artists, who continue to re-centre bodies-of-colour through the strategy of performative fictive masquerading.
Marasela explores the psychogeography of Black women's lived experiences, incorporating matrilineal stories narrated to her as a child, and wider sociocultural and political histories of South Africa. In her work, she translates memories of struggle and urbanization through the use of material culture and narratives, such as the use of the color red, which refers to cultural memories around the time of the "Red Dust“ – a period of drought in the 1930s in South Africa. Marasela's mother's collection of doilies and Victorian lace works handed down in her family, influenced her artistic practice. Her work taps into cultural memories using, printing archival materials such as newspapers and photographs on colonial textiles. It tells stories of black women in South Africa and builds an "intimate archive“, giving voice to experiences of Black women. Marcela is known for her six-year performance work Ijermani Lam when she was wearing the same red dress every day.
Her work features in prominent local and international collections, including the Newark Museum, Smithsonian Institution and MoMA, New York, as well as some private collections such as the Leridon collection in Paris, the Harry David collection in Athens and the Sindika Dokolo collection in Angola. She was part of the 56th Johannesburg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2015).
Selected exhibitions:
Solo exhibitions:
2024, I write (stitch) what I like — Bode, Berlin (DE)
2020, Waiting for Gebane — Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (RSA)
2011, Sarah, Theodora and Senzeni in Johannesburg — Gallery AOP, Johannesburg (RSA)
2011, New traditions: Louise McCagg & Senzeni Marasela — A.I.R. Gallery, New York (USA)
2010, Beyond Booty: Covering Sarah Baartman and Other Tales — Axis Gallery, New Jersey (USA)
2009, Witness — Gallery AOP, Johannesburg (RSA)
2009, Oh my God you look like shit. Who let you out of the house looking like that? — Sternersen Museum, Oslo (NO)
2009, JONGA: Look at Me – Museum of Women, Dolls and Memories — Deveron Projects, Huntly (UK)
2005, Theodorah I-III — Gallery AOP, Johannesburg (RSA)
2004, Three Women, Three Voices — Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2002, Upstream — Public Art Project, Amsterdam (NL)
2000, Fresh — Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (RSA)
Group exhibitions:
2022, Empowerment — Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (DE)
2021, The Power of My Hands — Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris (FR)
2020, Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection — El Espacio 23, Miami (USA)
2020, Ubuntu – Five Rooms from the Harry David Collection — National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (GR)
2020, Sous le fil — Les Abattoirs, Toulouse (FR)
2020, Alpha Crucis — Contemporary African Art, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (NO)
2019, Paris Photo — Grand Palais, Paris (FR)
2019, Yesterday is Today’s Memory — Espace Commines, Paris (FR)
2019, I am… Contemporary Women Artists of Africa — The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (US)
2018, Soft Power — Centre d’art Le Transpalette, Bourges (FR)
2018, Ravelled Threads — Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (USA)
2017, Africa. Raccontare un mondo — Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (IT)
2016, KIN, HANGAR – Centro de Investigação Artística, Lisbon (PT)
2015, 56th Johannesburg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Venice (IT)
2014, Nomad Bodies — Royal Academy of Fine Art, Antwerp (BE)
2013, Trans-Africa: Africa curating Africa — Absa Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2012, Present Tense: Arts of Contemporary Africa — The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey (USA)
2011, Impressions from South Africa, 1960 to Now — Museum of Modern Art, New York (US)
2011, Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA (USA)
2010, Translations: Art into Jewelry — Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2010, Dystopia — Jan Colle Galerij, Ghent (BE)
2009, Beauty and Pleasure — Stenersen Museum, Oslo (NO)
2009, Unbounded: New Art for a New Century — The Newark Museum of Art, Newark (USA)
2009, Developing Democracy: A New Focus on South African Photography — Kyle Kauffman Gallery, New York (USA)
2008, Thami Mnyele & Medu Art Ensemble Retrospective Exhibition — Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2008, Black Womanwood: Icons, Images, and Ideologies of the African Body — Hood Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (USA)
2007, Jive Soweto — Hector Pieterson Museum, Soweto (RSA)
2006, Ranjith Kally, Senzeni Marasela, Ruth Seopedi Motau — Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2006, Erase Me from Who I Am, Las Palmas, Canary Islands (SP)
2005, Click — Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
2004, Ten Voices, Ten Years of Democracy — Public art project of the city of Rome (IT)
2004, Public Private — Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (NZ)
2003, The Body and the Archive — Artists Space, New York (USA)
2002, Aids in Africa — Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA (USA)
2001, Sample E.C. — Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (RSA)
2001, Open House Exhibition — Umeå Arts Campus, Umea (SE)
2000, Margins in the Mainstream — Namibian National Gallery, Windhoek (NA)
2000, Translation/Seduction/Displacement: Post-Conceptual and Photographic Work. South African Artists — WhiteBox, New York (USA)
2000, Porträt Afrika — Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (DE)
2000, Art Region End of Africa — Listafen Reykjavikur Kjarvalsstadir, Reykjavík (IS)
1999, Market Photo Workshop Exhibition — Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
1999, Postcards From South Africa — Axis Gallery, New York (USA)
1999, Truth Veils — Getrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
1998, Family Ties — Sandton Civic Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
1998, Democracy’s Images — Bildmuseet, Umea (SE)
1998, Women’s Voices — Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart (DE)
1997, Not Quite a Christmas Exhibition — Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (RSA)
1997, Martienseen Prize Exhibition — Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, (RSA)