BOOK SIGNING: PROUD SOUTH CRAFT BY LIDEWJI EDELKOORT
Tuesday, 17 February, at 11AM
Southern Guild Cape Town

Southern Guild Cape Town hosts a Proud South Craft book signing with Dutch trend forecaster, design educator, and cultural exhibition curator Lidewij (Li) Edelkoort during Cape Town Art Week, offering a moment for conversation around the publication’s themes and visual research. The book features artists Andile Dyalvane, Adam Birch, and Porky Hefer, with a contribution by Southern Guild co-founder, Trevyn McGowan. The book follows Edelkoort’s first edition, Proud South, published in 2022.

Click here to RSVP for the book signing – Limited spots available!

PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM | MOTHER/OTHER: ART, CARE AND THE MATERNAL IMAGINATION
Tuesday, 17 February, 9:30AM – 3:30PM
Iziko Museum

Three Southern Guild artists – Bonolo Kavula, Manyaku Mashilo, and Usha Seejarim – will participate in various panel discussions as part of Mother/Other: Art, Care and the Maternal Imagination. The one-day public symposium will examine motherhood and mothering as cultural, political, and creative forces, anchored by the exhibition Motherhood: Paradox and Duality, curated by Andrea Lewis. All three artists present work in the exhibition.

PANEL INFORMATION:
Panel 2 | ‘Mothering as Radical: Collective Care and Kinship’
11:30AM – 13:00PM

Reframing mothering beyond the nuclear family, this roundtable explores queer, chosen, and communal forms of care. Mothering is positioned as a political and creative practice rooted in interdependence, mutual aid, and sustainable living.

Speakers: Dee Marco (moderator), Bev Butkow, Sharlene Kahn, Zayaan Khan, Manyaku Mashilo, and Maneo Mohale

Panel 3 | ‘Maternal Muse: Motherhood as Creative Catalyst’
14:00 – 15:30PM

Focusing on motherhood as a generative force rather than a constraint, this panel explores how maternal experiences shape artistic practice. Discussions centre on the everyday, the body, intergenerational storytelling, and the aesthetics of care.

Speakers: Nomusa Makhubu (moderator), Grace Cross, Christine Dixie, Bonolo Kavula, Teresa Firmino Kutala, Usha Seejarim.

GROUP EXHIBITION: RESTORATION OF SIGHT BY TILGA ART PRIZE SALON
Wednesday, 18 February, 4 – 7PM
Southern Guild Warehouse

Marking the fifth anniversary of the Tilga Art Prize, the salon-style exhibition curated by Mpumi Mayisa brings together eight artists — Athenkosi Kwinana, Abongile Sidzumo, Buqaqawuli Nobakada, Brian Montshiwa, Keabetswe Seema, Hannah Macfarlane, Lindani Nyandeni, and Zama Cebsile Mwandla — whose practices invite viewers to reconsider how meaning is produced through image, material, sound, and spatial encounter. Restoration of Sight foregrounds seeing as an active process: one that is learned, unlearned, and continuously expanded.

“The Tilga Art Prize is a philanthropic arts initiative dedicated to identifying, supporting, and elevating promising emerging artists across Africa. Restoration of Sight reflects our commitment to fostering critical artistic voices and building spaces where new perspectives can emerge and endure.” — Wole Bakare, Founder, Tilga Foundation

VIP PROGRAMME EVENT
SOUTHERN GUILD HOSTS: BREAKFAST WITH ZIZIPHO POSWA
Forms of Arrival: Zizipho Poswa on Passage, Motherhood and Making
Friday, 20 February, 9:30AM
Southern Guild Cape Town

Southern Guild and acclaimed South African ceramist Zizipho Poswa invite collectors to a special breakfast and artist-led walkabout of Poswa’s fifth solo exhibition, Imbeleko. The artist will share reflections on her latest body of work of immense earthenware sculptures – a series rooted in ritual, birth, and rites of passage. Honouring motherhood as both a universal and deeply personal act of creation, this body of work traces the cyclical continuities between making, nurturing, and becoming.

Imbeleko by Zizipho Poswa, alongside Pareidolia by Justine Mahoney, will open and run concurrently from Thursday, 12 February at 6PM, at Southern Guild Cape Town, in the lead-up to Art Week.

We're proud to be partnering for the first time with Bouchard Finlayson - award-winning wines from the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley.

VIP PROGRAMME EVENT
LOOKING INWARD: A SELF-PORTRAIT WORKSHOP WITH ZANELE MUHOLI
Friday, 20 February, 11AM – 1PM
Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC)

Visual activist Zanele Muholi hosts a self-portrait workshop that responds directly to the fair’s theme, Listen, as well as to the wider dialogue about the role of art fairs in the international art market. The series is designed to encourage interaction between practitioners and audiences, provoking questions and offering exciting ways of engaging with the art fair model. The workshops have been designed to explore both practical sessions, encouraging audience engagement, creativity, and open discussion, giving participants a chance to actively reflect and engage with current ideas in South Africa’s and the wider world’s art landscape.

Muholi’s practice centres on the act of looking inward through self-portraiture. This session, in collaboration with ORMS, will provide cameras for participants as Muholi leads a workshop on photographing oneself as an act of self-discovery. The session will combine both practical and conceptual approaches to image-making.

KAMYAR BINESHTARIGH: OPEN STUDIO
Friday, 20 February, 12 NOON – 4PM
Furnishers – 157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock

Join Kamyar Bineshtarigh and fellow artists Alka Dass, Boytchie, Felix Laband, and Isabella Chydenius at their newly established studio/project space in Woodstock for a relaxed open studios event – an opportunity to connect meaningfully with the artists and their practices, as well as to get an insider look at their studio worlds. It will also see the launch of the 1 WALL Project, a sketch for a recurrent micro-presentation of works across a single studio wall. Running simultaneously is Misfits (Vol. 2), the second iteration of a community-led, studio-based group exhibition featuring over 50 artists. The goal is inclusion and visibility, creating a catchment for the spill of cultural work coming out of the city, but not necessarily falling under the official Art Week umbrella.

ICTAF TALKS PROGRAMME
TALK 4: ‘Listening Inward: Intuition, Spirituality, and the Unseen in Contemporary Art’
Saturday, 21 February, 5 - 6PM
Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC)

Manyaku Mashilo – who is featured in the SOLO section of the fair – will take part in a panel discussion moderated by Thandazani Dhlakama (Curator of Global Africa, Royal Ontario Museum). The conversation will explore the unseen forces that shape artistic practice, with speakers Khanyisile Mbongwa (Curator) and Zohra Opoku (Artist) joining Mashilo to complete this all-women panel.

MAGUGU HOUSE CAPE TOWN: Where fashion meets art
Open Tuesday - Saturday; 10AM - 6PM
Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel

The recently-opened Magugu House Cape Town sees celebrated South African designer Thebe Magugu bring his unique Afro-modernist vision to the Nellie, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of his illustrious brand. Part concept store, part cultural institute, what has evolved is a dynamic hub for aesthetic exchange. The space will serve as both a showroom for Magugu's collections and a gallery showcasing artworks from the most sought-after artists – a true celebration of African creativity. The inaugural exhibition, titled By Our Own Hands, features photographs by Zanele Muholi, sculptural forms in ceramic and bronze by Zizipho Poswa, and garments by Magugu. It explores making as a form of cultural authorship, highlighting practices that transform materials, symbols, and gestures into carriers of cultural meaning, continuity, and ritual.

The adjoining Thebe Magugu Suite was launched at the same time and represents Magugu's debut interior design project. The reimagined suite has been carefully curated, presenting an elegant mix of South African culture, design and art. A specially-commissioned painting by Southern Guild artist Mmangaliso Nzuza greets you at the entryway to the suite – the ideal welcome into this stunning space.