Writer and Performance Artist

It’s telling that when Bogosi Sekhukhuni was growing up he wanted to be white. Much of his work as a writer and visual artist interrogates the complex and contradictory dilemmas of the “new” South Africa. Fukin’ Ridiculous, his public performance piece with Sabelo Goma, took businessman Kenny Kunene’s fondness for eating sushi off women’s bodies as its departure point, offering a stinging critique of the “Rainbow Nation”. At 22, this visual arts student at the University of Johannesburg has already exhibited alongside luminaries such as Kudzanai Chiurai and Steven Cohen and got the nod from Spoek Mathambo to be part of a presentation on South African contemporary visual culture at this year’s Design Indaba. He believes the arts have a major role to play in reimagining our identities, addressing the burdens of our broken past “and being responsible to history”.

— Bongani Kona

Twitter: @kwassakwassa_k