LAB #B
Wunika Mukan Gallery returns for the 18th edition of FNB Art Joburg with a solo presentation of Sankofa: A Call to Remembrance, a new body of work by multidisciplinary artist and initiated healer Nthabiseng Boledi Kekana. This exhibition brings together ancestral wisdom, contemporary artistic practice, and the sacred act of remembering.
Nthabiseng Kekana (b. 1999) stands at the intersection of contemporary art and ancient wisdom. Born and raised in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Kekana has emerged as a distinctive voice in South African art, weaving together her roles as artist and initiated sangoma into a unified practice of spiritual and cultural reclamation. Her journey from the National School of the Arts through fashion design at LISOF to multimedia studies at the University of Johannesburg reflects a path of constant discovery, one that would ultimately lead her back to the ancestral knowledge that informs her most powerful work.
The genesis of Sankofa extends far beyond the studio walls. These works were conceived a year before their creation, a product of the preparatory work required for Kekana’s initiation as a traditional healer. This process demanded that she actively reconnect with lost fragments of her heritage—a deliberate journey that led her to encounter language, culture, and familial connections that had been severed by time and circumstance. The faces she met were both foreign and familiar, strangers who carried features, behaviors, and histories that belonged to her because she belonged to them.
Working from her Johannesburg studio, Kekana employs a deliberately slow and ritualistic approach to creation. Each piece becomes an act of excavation and restoration, built through layers of oil paint, acrylics, charcoal, and pastels. Natural fibers are central to Kekana's practice, functioning as both material and metaphor.
Within the wider body of materially rich works, Zazi (Know Thyself) and Umsamo (Sacred Space) exemplify Kekana's integration of material and meaning. Zazi incorporates Imfibinga beads also known as Job's tears, traditionally gathered by Zulu women for generations as natural teething remedies for children. These seeds carry profound spiritual significance in dream interpretation and ancestral connection, with different colors symbolizing distinct qualities of peace, strength, and healing. In Kekana's hands, these humble beads become both aesthetic and profound, their presence on canvas creating a tactile aura around the focal point of the piece.
Umsamo calls for reverence through grass mats, ochre, soil, and cowrie shells; elements that speak to the sacred interior spaces of traditional Zulu homes where the Umsamo serves as both altar and repository for families to store precious items and commune with ancestors. According to the artist, the cowrie shells on the work were thrown in prayer and not placed, meaning they rest where they are meant to be. The red ochre, known colloquially as Dzumane, carries particular weight as this earth pigment plays a crucial role in sangoma initiation rituals, where initiates are
symbolically buried beneath soil to reconnect with natural cycles and ancestral wisdom.
Through the conceptual framework of Sankofa—the Akan philosophy meaning "go back and fetch"—these works function as acts of retrieval and restoration. They challenge the notion that progress requires abandoning the past, instead proposing that authentic forward movement demands a deliberate return to source. For Kekana, this is not nostalgic romanticism but necessary spiritual work. As she articulates: "Spirit is calling for us to drop all the facades, the distractions, the pretenses and cages that keep us hidden from our true selves."
In a world that pulls relentlessly toward the future, Sankofa: A Call to Remembrance serves as a deliberate counterweight. The Artist offers these works as vessels. Textured portals that invite personal encounter and individual revelation. These works mirror our subconscious narratives while urging recognition that personal histories are sacred and worthy of preservation.
Open to interpretation each piece carries intention, but once complete, it must find its own destiny in dialogue with those who encounter it.
