Usha Seejarim

Usha Seejarim is a conceptual artist whose practice interrogates the intersection of gender, labour, and power through the transformation of everyday domestic objects. By recontextualising materials such as irons, brooms, and wooden pegs, her sculpture and installations destabilise normative associations of women’s work, reframing acts of care and repetition as aesthetic and political gestures.

Born in Bethal, South Africa in 1974, Seejarim obtained a B Tech Honours in Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg (1999) and a Master’s in Fine Art from the University of Witwatersrand (2008). She has a Master’s in Business Administration (pending conferral) awarded by the University of Reading, UK through Henley Business School (2025).

Seejarim has held numerous solo exhibitions, including most recently, Unfolding Servitude, Southern Guild Cape Town (2025); Angel of the House, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town (2021); Vessel of the Fish, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2019); Un balai, pourquoi pas une balai, SCAC Marestaing, France (2019); Transgressing Power, SMAC Gallery, Johannesburg (2019); and Venus at Home (2012-2014), which travelled to Northwest University Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Durban Art Gallery and the National Arts Festival in Makhanda.

Seejarim has also held solo presentations of her work at the 2023 Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg, 2022, FNB Art Joburg and 2018 Investec Cape Town Art Fair. Notable group exhibitions include Le Sel Noir: Perspectives of Black Contemporary Art, Städtishe Galerie Bremen (2025); Re:Fuse-Ability, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg (2025); Motherhood: Paradox and Duality, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2025); Mother Tongues and signifying the impossible song, Southern Guild Los Angeles (both 2024); Empowerment, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2022); Quiet Focus, Nirox Sculpture Park, Gauteng (2022); The Red Hour, curated by Simon Njami for the Dak’Art: African Contemporary Art Biennale in Dakar (2018); Twenty: Art in the Time of Democracy, a travelling exhibition presented at the University of Johannesburg, Turchin Centre in Boone, the US and the Beijing Biennale (2015); and Where do we migrate to?, the University of Maryland in Baltimore, US (2011).

Seejarim is a visiting Professor of Practice with the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg. She has received multiple awards, including the Dignitas Award from University of Johannesburg (2022), SEED Award from the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art (2019), Tomorrow’s/Today Prize at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2018), SCAC Marestaing & The Secular Solidarity Association Sculpture Award at the Dakar Biennale (2018), and Ampersand Fellowship Award (2003).

Her work is included in the collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery, Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Stellenbosch University, Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, University of South Africa, and Fondazione Fiera Milan in Italy, among others.