A continent. A diaspora.
A conversation.
OPENING THE JOURNAL
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Novo Jornal reports that Luanda’s Palácio de Ferro is hosting 200 young creators from Angola’s 21 provinces. The national showcase includes visual and applied arts alongside other disciplines, and will select 15 representatives for the CPLP biennial in Cabo Verde. Organised by the Angolan Youth Institute, it links local practice with international opportunities.
Zeitz MOCAA announced the launch of Everything but the Exhibition on 17 September 2026. Developed from IMPRINT, its publishing-focused Atelier, the online publication examines the research, discussion and production that surround exhibitions. The museum describes a space for visual and sound experiments alongside critical conversation, treating publishing as a curatorial practice in its own right and bringing less visible institutional processes into public view.
Banji Chona considers what sustained public access means for Zambia’s art history through Henry Tayali’s Destiny at Lechwe Trust Art Gallery. The review distinguishes the painting’s return to Zambia in 1991 from its renewed display in 2026, arguing that conservation, criticism, education and encounters with collections help keep artistic histories alive.
Zeitz MOCAA announced free admission for Heritage Day on 24 September 2026, alongside activities connecting art, architecture and South African cultural heritage. The Cape Town museum’s programme included multilingual building tours, exhibition tours, creative workshops and live performances. Its education team presented the day as an invitation for new and returning audiences to explore the museum together. This is an account of the announced programme, now past.
ArtThrob and Krone announced a three-week residency at Twee Jonge Gezellen in Tulbagh for 5–25 July 2027, developed with Sue Williamson. Three artists will share facilities and participate in exchanges across disciplines. The call lists accommodation, a food allowance, studio access and travel within South Africa; international participants must cover travel to the country. Applications close on 6 November 2026, with individual and group submissions accepted.
Zeitz MOCAA announced a presentation by Nolan Oswald Dennis for FNB Art Joburg, scheduled for 3–6 September 2026. Revisiting the artist’s UNDERSTUDIES exhibition, the booth focused on collaborative works using soil and geological materials to explore relationships between land, knowledge and collective labour. The museum also announced the launch of ECLIPTICS, Dennis’s first monograph, alongside discussions extending the presentation beyond the fair.
In an ArtThrob interview, Alexander Richards and Igshaan Adams explain how they curated Peter Clarke’s The Departure at Stevenson in Cape Town. A short story Clarke wrote in 1955 provided a starting point for connecting paintings, prints, drawings and personal material. The curators describe exploring Simon’s Town, studying Clarke’s carefully annotated archive and developing an exhibition that suggests relationships among his works rather than a straightforward biographical chronology.
Zeitz MOCAA announced Elvira Dyangani Ose’s appointment as artistic director, effective 1 October 2026. The Cape Town museum said she would lead its curatorial direction as it approached its second decade, building on Koyo Kouoh’s legacy. The announcement highlighted her leadership at MACBA and The Showroom, her curatorial work at Tate, and her longstanding engagement with art from Africa and its diaspora.
Ahead of the inaugural KZN Art Fair in August 2026, founders Angela Shaw and Lungelo Mkhize told ArtThrob how their partnership with the Hilton Arts Festival developed. They described a programme combining galleries, artist collectives, craft, publications and discussions at Hilton College. The interview centres on their ambition to create sustainable local opportunities and retain creative talent in KwaZulu-Natal, rather than requiring artists to relocate.
ArtThrob considers Pyda Nyariri’s Paivapo at Cape Town’s Association for Visual Arts through the fictional figure Pidgin. The Zimbabwean-born artist combines relief paintings, cotton gauze and clay with sound by Denise Onen and writing by Rabia Abba Omar. The review reads these interlocking elements through Édouard Glissant’s ideas about relation and opacity, arguing that their elusive language resists colonial classification and opens possibilities for collective belonging.
ArtThrob asked artists, curators and other practitioners what they were reading in winter 2026. Contributions from Olga Speakes, Jo Stella-Sawicka, George Mahashe, Nisha Merit and Lerato Shadi ranged across fiction, photography, textiles and critical theory. Recommendations included a Carrie Mae Weems publication, Matter Mattering Matters and writing by African women, offering a view into the intellectual interests surrounding contemporary artistic practice.
In Gaborone, the Artist Residency Centre supports contemporary practice through studio space, mentorship, exhibitions and a public resource collection. Sibongile O.K. Msimango speaks with its founders and team about collaboration and the difficulty of sustaining a grassroots institution, showing how the centre complements Botswana’s existing art organisations while helping artists develop their ideas.
Simnikiwe Buhlungu received the MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award and its R100,000 prize at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda on 26 June 2026, ArtThrob reported. Her sound installation explored gospel, diasporic memory and collective listening. Curated by Amogelang Maledu, the associated exhibition also included Zara Julius, thato makatu and Unathi Mkonto, bringing together practices concerned with knowledge, survival and contemporary experience.
ArtThrob’s review of Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo’s Song 1: To be left behind considers how the Cape Town exhibition approaches the artist’s memories of his late father. Fragmented photographs, repeated self-portraits and experiments with printing surfaces connect family history with the physical construction of images. The critic reads these incomplete and sometimes unsettling forms as a meditation on grief, inheritance and photography’s capacity to hold uncertain memories.
Eric Otieno Sumba revisits Portia Zvavahera’s exhibition at the Fridericianum in Kassel, examining how dreams, faith and painted surfaces shape her work. His review praises the expansive installation of House of Praise while questioning more conventional displays, then considers how editorial and institutional pressures affect the timely publication of art criticism.
Zeitz MOCAA announced Jessica Nowitzki’s appointment to its board of trustees in June 2026. The museum described the US-based collector and arts advocate as a longstanding supporter of African American and diaspora artists and a member of its Global Council. Her appointment adds to the governing body responsible for strategic and financial oversight as the Cape Town institution prepares for its tenth anniversary in 2027.
In Mozambique, creative reuse connects art with everyday environmental challenges. Global Voices profiles Vânia Gonçalo, who transforms discarded tyres into furniture and decorative objects, and Mudungaze, whose masks and other works draw on scrap metal and African cultural references. Rapper Osvaldo Iko MC adds music and digital campaigning to the picture. Together, these accounts explore how creativity, environmental education and income-making can intersect amid unequal access to waste services and cultural spaces.
In May 2026, Zeitz MOCAA announced a season connecting artist-led publishing with African and diasporic moving-image practices. IMPRINT was planned as a residency for Cape Town publishing collectives, while Turning Towards the Sun would present six commissioned films developed through the African Film and Media Arts Collective. The announcement linked both projects to collective production, public engagement and experimentation across the continent and its diaspora.
Zeitz MOCAA announced that Lidija Khachatourian and Suzanne McFayden Smith had joined its Global Council, while founding member Michèle Sandoz became senior strategic advisor for global patronage. The museum described the council as a non-voting network whose members advocate internationally and support programmes financially. The appointments formed part of its preparations for its tenth anniversary in 2027 and efforts to strengthen long-term institutional support.
Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and printmaker Sara-Aimee Verity discuss translating painting into woodcut for Anchor (Reprise), a C& artist edition. Their exchange follows decisions about laser-cut blocks, wood grain, black paper and negative space. The image’s relay-race subject becomes a way to describe collaboration itself, with different strengths contributing to a shared result.