Athi-Patra Ruga (South Africa 1984-)
Sibambiso †

wool and thread on tapestry canvas

Year: 2017
Exhibited: WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, 'Queens in Exile', 29 November 2017 to 7 February 2018.
Exchange Rates*: USD 19001.55 – 24430.57
EURO 17267.78 – 22201.43
GBP 14531.85 – 18683.80

(1)

212 x 187 cm unframed

Provenance:

Private collection, Cape Town.

WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town.

† Vat is charged on both hammer and premium for daggered lots.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

A procession of schoolchildren stands ankle-deep in water, their heads bowed, arms folded, eyes closed. It’s a moment of stillness and strength. At their centre, a towering, otherworldly figure presides: the artist himself, cloaked and crowned in bones, adorned with tassels that echo academic ceremonial dress. Part seer, part protector, part graduate, Ruga appears as a kind of high priestess conducting a rite of passage – reigning over this sea of young people, ushering them toward something beyond the present. The vibrant, colour-swept sky behind them gestures to a spiritual realm or the imagined nation of Azania – an imagined, alternate South Africa[1] – a mythic elsewhere where the work’s themes of memory, resistance, and transformation converge. Sibambiso is both grounded in history yet elevated by the speculative, drawing together the personal, political, and ancestral into one symbolic ceremony.

The work’s title, Sibambiso, meaning ‘the pledge’ in isiXhosa, emphasises a collective commitment. The school uniforms worn by the children carry a dual weight. On one hand, they suggest the innocence and vulnerability of youth. On the other, they evoke order and resolute solidarity. But there’s a deeper resonance here, one that reaches into the heart of South Africa’s history of resistance. Created in 2017, at the height of the #FeesMustFall movement, the work threads the schoolchild into a broader narrative – recalling the legacy of young people as the faces of resistance struggles, from the 1976 Soweto Uprising to the student protests of today. Like an army in matching regalia, their stances evoke a quiet defiance – unmoving and united, as if pledging allegiance not to the nation as it stands, but to a vision of what it could be.

The water they stand in also is not incidental. In Ruga’s alternate world-making, ocean water holds deep symbolic charge. One recurring example is the Oceanus Paenitentiae (Ocean of Repentance), which appears on several of his imagined maps. It references the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the making of a so-called new South Africa – a whitewashed reconciliation that skirted the urgency of redistributive justice. In response, Ruga surrounds his islands with this ocean of repentance, drawing on African spiritual traditions where water is a substance of cleansing.[2] Before reaching the shore, one must pass through this symbolic sea: a baptismal reckoning with the past. The surrounding water here, then, becomes a threshold – unstable ground that nonetheless binds the group together. It evokes risk, reflection, and the possibility of crossing over.

Part of Ruga’s Queens in Exile (2014 - 2017) series, shown at WHATIFTHEWORLD in Cape Town, this work is situated within his ongoing exploration of myth-making, queerness, and the rewriting of official histories. In this series, those who have been cast out: queens, prophets, students, dreamers, are given space to re-emerge through highly stylised, symbolic portraits. The use of tapestry, a medium historically associated with heraldry and storytelling, underscores this project of reimagining who gets remembered, and how.

Amy Carrington

^{[1] O’Toole, S. (2017). Artforum. Athi-Patra Ruga: WHATIFTHEWORLD. [online]: https://www.artforum.com/events/athi-patra-ruga-239251/}

^{[2] Mail & Gaurdian. (2017). Ruga explores exile within. [online]: https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-29-00-ruga-explores-exile-within/}

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in local and international collections, notably, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; The Museum of Modern Art, Bolonzo and The Wedge Collection, Toronto.