Notes

The costumed figure in this photograph speaks directly to Athi-Patra Ruga’s biography, in particular his love for fashion and artistic penchant for elaborate scenography and camp theatrics. Born in Umtata but raised in East London, Ruga moved to Johannesburg in 2002 to study fashion at the Gordon Flack-Davidson Academy of Design. He soon encountered the work of transgressive performance artists Steven Cohen and Sharon Bone, and also befriended artist Tracey Rose, whom he would later assist. The balloon-clad figure in this photo was conceived for a live performance at the 2010 Toffie Festival in Argentina. Ruga subsequently staged appearances in Holland and Italy, as well as in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Grahamstown. Over time his drag-influenced character acquired a mythical context: she is a monarch from a matriarchal dynasty ruling Azania, a fictional utopia once championed by anti-apartheid activists. Ruga has likened his Azania to Walter Battiss’s Fook Island: ‘I think one should always have the idea of a better place.’¹

Sean O’Toole

1. Sean O’Toole, interview with artist, 21 October 2013.

Exhibited

WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, The Future White Women of Azania Saga, 27 November to 1 January 2014.

Framer Framed, Amsterdam, Re(as)sisting Narratives, 28 August to 27 November 2016.

Literature

Athi-Patra Ruga. (2014) Athi-Patra Ruga: F.W.W.O.A SAGA, Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD. Illustrated in colour, unpaginated.