Image credits: © Anthea Pokroy
Siviwe James
Ubuhle Ngaphaya Kwameva
INCCA project space, Victoria Yards, Johannesburg
2-26 February 2025
Presented by INCCA (Independent Network for Contemporary Culture & Art)
Supported by National Arts Council South Africa (NAC)
Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP 5).
Ubuhle Ngaphaya Kwameva
INCCA project space, Victoria Yards, Johannesburg
2-26 February 2025
Presented by INCCA (Independent Network for Contemporary Culture & Art)
Supported by National Arts Council South Africa (NAC)
Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP 5).
In her debut solo exhibition titled Ubuhle Ngaphaya Kwameva, Siviwe James presented a body of work that explores the act of producing ‘new’ memories from archived events of the past. By using her personal archive, James mashes visuals to create new landscapes of remembering. Taking the form of a series of digital collages and video work, she explains, “personal acts of recollection are forms of collective remembrance and storytelling by way of social reproduction for unsolicited exhibition on social media.” Now, for the first time, these works were printed and presented as a physical body of work exploring how in this context “the public sphere exists and facilitates personal and collective memory, performances and reviews pivoting between recovering from trauma and reasserting claims to particular futures.”
This exhibition forms part of INCCA’s Art After Baby (AAB) initiative. In her application to participate in the project, James lamented the lack of guidance she felt navigating tragedy, while simultaneously embracing the possibilities that come with uncertainty. “After returning home in 2020 as a 30-year-old widow with a 2-year-old, I couldn’t quite grasp what happens here. There was no manual on what it looks like to build up from that point. There were many ends to this place I was in and the one that seemed to pull at me the most was that maybe I could try at some of the unfulfilled dreams I had pushed to the side while I was wrapped in marriage and being a life-maker for others.”
AAB is an ongoing project initiated by INCCA in 2023 that supports those who are trying to juggle art-making with motherhood, care-giving or have been impacted by loss. This is one of the few projects in South Africa that acknowledges that artists are often “zero-hour workers” with a sporadic and unreliable income, and that many women carry the responsibility of being primary caregivers without the financial cushion to continue their practice. AAB was supported by the National Arts Council South Africa (NAC) Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP 5, PESP4) in 2025 and 2023.
Read “When home creates time. A conversation between Siviwe James and Thulile Gamedze”, a text commisioned as part of INCCA’s AAB here
This exhibition forms part of INCCA’s Art After Baby (AAB) initiative. In her application to participate in the project, James lamented the lack of guidance she felt navigating tragedy, while simultaneously embracing the possibilities that come with uncertainty. “After returning home in 2020 as a 30-year-old widow with a 2-year-old, I couldn’t quite grasp what happens here. There was no manual on what it looks like to build up from that point. There were many ends to this place I was in and the one that seemed to pull at me the most was that maybe I could try at some of the unfulfilled dreams I had pushed to the side while I was wrapped in marriage and being a life-maker for others.”
AAB is an ongoing project initiated by INCCA in 2023 that supports those who are trying to juggle art-making with motherhood, care-giving or have been impacted by loss. This is one of the few projects in South Africa that acknowledges that artists are often “zero-hour workers” with a sporadic and unreliable income, and that many women carry the responsibility of being primary caregivers without the financial cushion to continue their practice. AAB was supported by the National Arts Council South Africa (NAC) Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP 5, PESP4) in 2025 and 2023.
Read “When home creates time. A conversation between Siviwe James and Thulile Gamedze”, a text commisioned as part of INCCA’s AAB here