Essays, Criticism, Reviews
“Spectacle, scrutiny and sleights of hand: Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi’s Stadium.” Stevenson Gallery, November 2023.
“Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s powerful personal journey as a photographer in South Africa.” The Conversation. 31 August, 2023.
“Art and the Limits of ‘Awareness’ Politics: Reflections on Guantánamo, this year’s Berlin Biennale controversy, and the artworld’s tendency for shallow political consciousness.” Art Review. 11 Nov. 2022.
“Keguro Macharia: on grinding, grating, and creating friction against Kenyatta’s figurations of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.” Journal of African Cultural Studies. 17 June 2021.
“Ming Smith’s Photographic Tribute to August Wilson.” Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph. Aperture: 2020. (Essay in photobook).
“Contemporary African photographers Aïda Muluneh, Girma Berta and Sarah Waiswa.” National Gallery of Victoria Triennial. Exhibition catalogue. 2020.
“Fashioning an ‘Image Space’ in Apartheid South Africa: Afrapix Photographers’ Collective and Agency.” Extra – a publication of Antwerp’s FotoMuseum (2019).
“The Capacity-Building-Workshop-in-Africa and the Great White Saviour Industrial Complex Hokem.” Journal of African Cultural Studies. 31:3, 276-280. 2019.
“Relocating the Fragments: The Kaleidoscopic Vision of Todd Gray.” Exhibition catalogue essay for exhibition, “Todd Gray: Euclidean Gris Gris.” Pomona College (2019).
“Gabrielle Goliath: performance as a ‘different kind of inhabitance’”. (Retrospective essay on the artist.) Africa South Art initiative (ASAi) (October 2019).
“What Can Photographs Tell Us About the History of Redlining in the US: Zora J Murff reflects on the intertwined legacies of segregation and violence in Black communities.” Aperture Blog (August 20th, 2019).
“Gabrielle Goliath’s ‘Elegy’ is a Powerful Lamentation for Victims of Sexual Violence:
Winner of the Future Generation Special Prize, the artist sheds a light on rape culture in South Africa and around the world.” frieze Magazine (31 May 2019).
“The Enduring Legacy of Frederick Douglass: Isaac Julien’s latest film explores the life and work of a man who believed in the power of photographs to transform American society.” Aperture Blog (10 May 2019).
“Does a Woman Have to Be Invincible? In her latest exhibition, Phoebe Boswell takes self-portraits—and self-healing—to a new level.” Aperture Blog (3 April 2019).
“Re:Collection: M. Neelika Jayawardane on Zanele Muholi.” Lightwork blog. Lightwork, Syracuse, NY (2019).
“Structures, State Violence, and Social Relations: David Goldblatt and Peter Magubane’s Cartographies of South Africa”. Exhibition Catalogue for: On Common Ground: David Goldblatt & Peter Magubane (28 July – 25 August 2018); curated by Paul Weinberg. Goodman Gallery Johannesburg (2019).
“Stamped on the Body: Aesthetics of power and decay in Zarina Bhimji’s Lead White.” Exhibition catalogue essay for Zarina Bhimji: Lead White. Tate Britain. Heni Publishing (November 19, 2018 - June 2, 2019).
“Homing Devices: South African Artists and Their Performative Bodies.” Exhibition catalogue essay for Continental Drift: Black / Blak Art From South Africa and North Australia. Cairns Art Gallery, Cairns, Queensland, Australia. July 2018.
“Mixtapes, Sonic Landscapes, and the Poverty Archive: The Politics and Poetics of the Im/Mobilised ‘Semi-politan’”. Exhibition Catalogue essay for: African Mobilities: This Is Not a Refugee Camp. The Architekturmuseum der TU München, Munich, Germany. June 2018.
“Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama: Embracing the Dark Lionesses’ Call”. For Aperture (2018).
“Chemutai Ngok” (catalogue entry). Songs for Sabotage. New Museum 2018 Triennale. Phaidon. 2018: 161-172.
“A Somber Commemoration of the Partition of India, 70 Years Later .” Hyperallergic. 19 January 2018.
“Nadine Ijewere” (monograph). Aperture Magazine. Fall 2017: No. 228.
“Can African Critics Rewrite the Story of African Photography?” Conversation with Emmanuel Iduma about the state of art criticism in Africa. Aperture Blog. Fall 217.
“In Ghana, Visions of Queer Friendship and Love.” (Interview with photographer Eric Gyamfi.) ArtsEverywhere. 26 June 2017.
“Eric Gyamfi” (monograph). Aperture Magazine. Summer 2017: No. 227.
“Photography as Travel Memoir: Itinerancy, Movement, and Subjectivity Formation in Kenyan photographer Mimi Cherono’s Work.” Essay for Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art. Walther Collection, 2017.
“No Shore in Sight: Precarious Journeys and Unbearable Passages in the Moving Image Installations of Candice Breitz and Mohau Modisakeng.” Exhibition Catalogue essay for the South Africa Pavilion, The 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. 2017. pp. 27-43.
“When the River of Life Nears Zero Time: Vibha Galhotra’s (In)Sanity In The Age Of Reason.” Catalogue essay for solo show, (In)Sanity In The Age Of Reason. Gallery Exhibit, March 2017.
“Bad Educations: Kemang wa Lehulere & the Art of South African Protest." Even Magazine. Even Magazine. Issue 5. pp 120-135.
“Liminal Horizons: Joël Andrianomearisoa’s When the day belongs to the night.” Catalogue essay for Joel Andrianomeriosoa’s work at the India Art Fair, 2017.
“Precarious Bricoleurs: Simphiwe Ndzube’s Becoming.” Catalogue essay for Simphiwe Ndzube’s solo exhibition. 2016.
“Dreaming of Transcendence: Andrew Tshabangu’s Photography.” Andrew Tshabangu: Footprints. Catalogue essay for a retrospective exhibition. Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg. 2017.
“Otobong Nkanga: Transformations and Erasures.” Overview article in Art of Nigerian Women. 2016.
“Between Nostalgia and Future Dreaming: Aida Muluneh’s Portraits”. Transition 120 (2016).
“Simon Gush: “City of Labor.” Contemporary &. May 2016. [Review essay]
“Moshekwa Langa: Sea of Things.” Contemporary &. May 2016. [Review essay]
“Nicholas Hlobo: Instinctual Voyages.” Art South Africa June 2016. [review essay]
“Love Lies Waiting”. Always, In Spite of Everything: Mimi Cherono’s Photography. Galleri Image, Århus, Denmark. 2016. [Catalogue essay]
“Telling and Retelling: 10th Bamako Biennale.” Contemporary &. December 2016. [Review essay]
“Photographing in the Presence of Absence: Cedric Nunn’s ‘Unsettled: One Hundred Year Xhosa War of Resistance’”. Unsettled: One Hundred Year Xhosa War of Resistance. Nunn, Cedric. Archipelago Books, 2015.
“Sharjah Biennale: Do Art – and Biennales – Change the World?” in Africa is a Country; “Shaping the Nation Through Art” in World Policy. November 2015.
“Hashtagging Racism: The Power of #IfTheyGunnedMeDown”. HyperAllergic: Art and Culture. August 14, 2014.
“Images of Change: George Hallett’s Photographs of Nelson Mandela.” Contemporary &. December 2013. [review essay]
“Cartography without Frontiers: The Body, the Border, and the Desert in Sama Alshaibi’s Artwork.” Contemporary Practices: Visual Art from the Middle East. Vol 13. November 2013.
“Strange Cargo: Jane Alexander at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.” Art South Africa. October, 2013.
“Memoirs Take a Daring Turn in South Africa.” Symposium Magazine. July 2013. [Webjournal]
"Holi in South Africa: Post-Racial Colours?" Norient: Global Sounds and Media Culture. April 2013.
"Apartheid in Manhattan." Art South Africa, pp. 38-41, February 2013. (Also downloadable here.)
"Strange Cargo: Jane Alexander at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan." Warscapes. May, 2012.
"Everyone's Got Their Indian": Photographic History of South Africa's Asians. Transitions 107, 50-65.
“Sama Alshaibi’s Silsila: Invoking Routes Across Sand and Sea.” Exhibition Catalogue, Maldives Pavilion, “Portable Nation.” 55th Venice Biennale.
“Leak, Memory: Guantanamo Memoirs.” New Inquiry. May 2012. [Webjournal]
“David Goldblatt’s Photography in Manhattan’s Jewish Museum.” SAVVY: art.contemporary.african. 3rd edition, pp. 91-105.
“The Usefulness of Forgetting: Werewere Liking’s The Amputated Memory.” The Chimurenga Chronic. Issue 16. October 2011.
“Of Gangsters and Golfers: a racist trope in Africa opens up a debate on Otherness”. The Caravan: A Journal of Politics and Culture. 1 September 2011.
“Returns: 60 Years of David Goldblatt’s Photography.” The Johannesburg Salon. Volume 3 2010.
“Algurabaa' (The Strangers): Sama Alshaibi and Dena Al-Adeeb's Baghdadi Mem/Wars.” Current Practices: Visual Arts from the Middle East. Fall 2010.
“Love/Sick: Privilege, Poverty, and AIDS Denialism in Southern Africa.” The Truth About the Fact: International Journal of Literary Nonfiction. (4th issue).
“Master of Ambiguity: Multiplicity in Imraan Coovadia’s Fictions.” Words, etc. September 2009.
“‘A World Doped on Words’: Filmmaker Eric Gandini on ‘GITMO.’” Chimurenga 11.
“Deterritorialising the Border: Third World Migrants in Contested Spaces”: Monograph on Artists Sama Alshaibi and Rosalinda Borcilla. University of Stellenbosch Art Gallery, 10th July, 2006.