Umthombo 4 - Magazine - Page 8

Nomusa Makhubu,
In Living Colour 1 (2014)
exploring what it
means to be African
Dr Nomusa Makhubu’s work encompasses academic research and
the visual arts – photography and film, in particular – to explore
ideas of gender, citizenship and what it means to be African.
oday, Makhubu is an awardwinning artist and a senior
lecturer in art history at the
University of Cape Town (UCT).
Among her many accomplishments, she
co-curated South Africa’s presentation at
the Venice Biennale with Nkule Mabaso,
also based at UCT, earlier this year.
But she could easily have ended up as
an architect or medical doctor.
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“When I finished high school, I had
good grades, and I could have followed
a career in the sciences. But I had an ‘A’
in art and a keen interest in what I could
do with it.”
The idea of African-ness
After completing her undergraduate
studies, Makhubu’s first body of work
investigated colonial photography. “I
questioned the way that such images
are presented as documentary in nature
while in fact they are highly subjective
and were mostly shot in a studio setting.”
Although the work was well received,
when Makhubu was given the chance to
complete her master’s in art history, she
jumped at it. Even at that early stage,
she was fascinated with the idea of what
constitutes African-ness.

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