OUPA SIBEKO
BA Performance & Visual Arts; MA Performance & Visual Arts, University of the Witwatersrand (WITS).
Sibeko is an interdisciplinary artist whose work moves between theatrical, gallery, scholarly and other public contexts, dealing with matter and politics of the body as a site of contested works. By enabling opportunities for affective and relational encounters using ritualistic performance and play, the artist seeks to critically engage approaches to the body — particularly the black body — the history of representation and the ways in which certain subjectivities have been (and are) figured, (black) pain, (black) spectacle, (black) negation, and the ethical implications of reimaging and re-enacting pain. Sibeko has come to understand and unpack artistic practice through an exploration of African indigenous knowledge. It is also from this source that he borrows key elements of his creative output, especially in relation to ritual and communal performances, theatre in the round, site-specific performances and the exchange of cultural knowledge in a shared communal space.
Sibeko was awarded a Mail & Guardian Top 200 and David Koloane award in 2019. The artist has taken part in group and solo shows in the National Art Gallery of Namibia; WITS Point of Order (TPO); WITS Art Museum; David Krut Gallery, Johannesburg; Dawid Ras Gallery, Johannesburg; Greatmore Studios, Cape Town; and The Freezer Hostel and Cultural Centre in Snaefellsbaer, Iceland.
Sibeko’s performance Black is Blue (2019–ongoing) – featured at the Nel Gallery, Cape Town (2021) and at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA) (2022) — is concerned with the practice of using seawater for healing and spiritual purposes that derives from Nguni and other African traditions.
Oupa Sibeko is an Artist in Residence in VIAD for 2025.
