Notes

"My artwork is inspired by Archbishop Desmund Tutu’s persistent fight for the people to have the right to vote and own their identities. Like many people living in South Africa, I have been battling to get my Identity Document as a South African citizen. Many people in this country share identity numbers and in a way our identities are reduced to a sequence of numbers. Without a number who are we?" –Bekezela Mabena

Bekezela Mabena is a South African-based visual artist, born in 1996. He lived in Zimbabwe for a number of years and returned to South Africa in 2008. He studied at the Jiyana Secondary School in Tembisa where he matriculated and received the Matric 2017 Visual Art Award. He completed his Third Year of study at Artist Proof Studio in 2020 and is currently enrolled in the Senior Graduate Programme.

Provenance

Donated by the artist. Courtesy of Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg.