Senzeni Marasela

Senzeni Marasela (born 11 February 1977) is a South African visual artist born in Thokoza who works across different media, combining performance, photography, video, prints, textiles, and embroidery in mixed-media installations. She obtained a BA in Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1998. Quotes Even though back then I didn't know what would happen, I understood that this is what I would like to do the rest of my life – be a storyteller I work every day, full-time, and I think that's why I'm quite prolific in production I grew up in a place where access to information was very limited and the country suffered from heavy censorship We had to rediscover South Africa when Mandela became president Whereas in other cultures family photographs are celebrated, we had to hide ours – from the police There has never been enough space in the city for Black women – they were historically missing in the archives, and their participation, whether it was a struggle for freedom or for decision-making, was unknown When you don't have representation as an artist in the modern art world, it becomes very difficult to move further IN CONVERSATION WITH SENZENI MARASELA | EPISODE 30 14 March 2024 I feel the need personally to participate in writing Black women’s history Performance is important to me. I like to insert myself into situations I notice that where I work currently, there is a visible struggle with how I look Women are so accustomed to being sexually available I am interested in how far I can push limits and eventually provoke people to interact with me The borders between real and unreal are fluid Senzeni Marasela 5 October 2014 African artists have far more opportunities for travelling and sharing than artists fifty years ago did Africa has always been a dynamic energy, it has just never had the opportunity to write its history and define itself.It first needs to define itself without the negations and burdens of English and French Colonialism. Then it can become a new entity. The continent will have to disappear in order for African Art to be called something else We should know more about each other’s work as African Artists than we do about European and American ar We need more art education in early childhood development, across the continent The Interview Issue: Senzeni Marasela 2013 I realised that fabric or things that we wear are historical documents because they carry so much information I think Africans in those spaces assimilate through clothing first, and then they learn the language One has a lot of difficulty trying to understand why being in the city centre should be so brutal for black women, why even the edges of the shops are occupied by these aggressive men who are out to police the behaviour of women and what they wear In conversation with Senzeni Marasela: A sense of (not) belonging 30 January 2021 The Winnie Mandela that we receive through the book is through the system of patriarchy that at once rejected her and at times lauded her Every day as a Black woman, you have to consider whether the spaces you enter are safe and work out which identity you are going to perform in order to keep this safety in check on the streets As women, the clothes we wear are cultural markers of the many roles we perform, as mothers, sisters, partners, workers, family members, wives, and so on Women use other women as mirrors to gauge their place or relevance in terms of beauty, wealth, and status Women in African society who have been revered have assumed roles men cannot, and then it is OK for them to be put on a pedestal Is it ever possible for Black feminism to exist outside Black patriarchy? Where can we exist in a space where Black feminism doesn’t have to be sanctioned by white women or Black men? Colonialism and patriarchy still lingers The only woman we knew who occupied public space was Winnie Mandela, and she was vilified. We were taught not to be like her, and to become a particular type of woman. Women older than us weren’t able to have these opportunities to speak and consider how to claim Black female subjectivities and identities We are still walking on very new terrain as Black women in this country, and I hope that the next generation carries on in this tradition The process of waiting is very personal for Black women, as we wait for different things. In my view, mining is the source of decay of Black families Senzeni Marasela: ‘My work is rooted in Johannesburg’ 7 April 2021 It’s also very difficult to be an artist in Africa. There is nowhere near enough patronage or understanding of what we do on the continent One of the biggest problems is that Black women are often seen as a group rather than as individual artists with individual careers When one Black woman succeeds, it is somehow assumed that she represents all of us, that one success is enough for everyone. So when I see collections describing themselves as “global,” but someone like me isn’t there, I have to ask: why? If people like me remain absent from major collections, then we risk becoming nothing more than a footnote in that history Our voices become so small, despite the fact that Africa is an entire continent made up of fifty-four countries We’re still missing spaces where African artists can come together and talk about their practices I would really like to see many more Black women remain in the arts. I think Black women need to have an active mentor. It’s so important to have someone constantly next to you, someone you can call, someone you can have conversations with, someone you can bounce ideas off I realised that my life’s work would be to tell stories from the perspective of a Black woman A lot of the stories we have had access to were not written from the perspective of Black women in this country. I think we are still on a journey of writing and speaking about ourselves, of discovering our own truths about who we are Fabric is important because of the history of how it arrived in South Africa. It came, in many ways, as a tool of division. Many of the fabrics that Black women wear today carry that history Knowledge about healing the body, treating illness, and caring for childbirth was gradually lost Today we rely so heavily on hospitals and Western medicine that we sometimes forget that previous generations had their own systems of knowledge and their own ways of caring for one another In many ways, I see myself as being on an evangelical mission as an artist: to educate people about the stories of Black women, about my mother’s story, and about the stories of women of her generation who never had these platforms We Are Artists Too”: Senzeni Marasela on the Persistence Marginalisation of Black Women in Global Art Collections 1 August 2026 External links Category:Painters from South Africa Category:1977 births Category:Living people