Multi-media artist Yonela Makoba’s solo exhibition at Constitution Hill references contemporary queer life and the world of the ancestors

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

When I and a friend arrived at the opening of the exhibition of Yonela Makoba titled iTi: Ritual Studies – Lomfazi Yindoda, a first solo exhibition by Yonela Makoba to ever be held in Johannesburg, curated by Tristan Baia on Saturday, April, we were slightly late and the performance, a spiritually touching ritual. onlookers were stunned into silence as they observed and watched the artist go through their performance.

Evoking the spirits of those that have passed on in their family, particularly their grandmother who is mythologised through this exhibition and performance as a woman, who was more than a woman, the fact hit home immediately that this was just not another performance. You could not fail to feel the connection between the performance and a deeply reflection about Yonela’s ancestral lineage.

At least it evoked the moments when performance art within the realm of visual art, was a huge thing in the country, such as when Stephen Cohen, Bernie Searle and Tracey Rose owned the floor as performers. In fact, Yonela’s performance made one to long for the days when this sort of art within the genre of visual art, was something that elevated the status of visual art in the country. Unfortunately, this is something that a younger generation of visual artists, with the exception of Lerato Shadi later in the late 2000s, seem to have cast aside in favour of painting.

Yonela, who performed in the nude, with their body covered only by a red layer ochre, emitted an almost silent chant with only soft words coming out of her mouth, as she seemed not only to be talking to her ancestors, particularly her grandmother who was also in different ways, a man, as in her life she could enter the kraal for man, and this is simply because as a healer, that privilege was extended to her too. She seemed to be also memorialising the pain and suffering the women prisoners at Number Four endured during the apartheid years, some of whom were political activists and freedom fighters. Number Four in post-Apartheid South Africa is now part of Constitution Hill, where the Constitutional Court is housed as well as a museum.

Just like those imprisoned here, Yonela’s grandmother is not only eulogised and mythologized in this exhibition, but her stature and standing in society is represented as the same as those of the women who were courageous and stood up against the indignity that the imprisoners imposed on them as they sang songs of courage and defiance within the prison walls.

Yonela’s grandmother was strong and in many ways, lived a life that was non-conventional and defiant. Because of her healing gifts, she enjoyed certain privileges in society that was not extended to other ordinary women, and that is the permission to enter a scared space such as the kraal meant for men in her village somewhere in the Eastern Cape, near East London.

I and the friend joined the rest of the group that surrounded Yonela in silence as she gave this stunning performance that propelled us into paying attention. This is a performance whose memory will remain vivid in the minds of those that attended the event. The story is that her grandmother was so privileged that at will in her life she could come in and out of the men’s kraal at will, but also in her after life, that is in death, her spirit enjoyed the same privilege, and hence the title of the exhibition, which also has an art component, a mixed media rendition of the same narrative.

What is also clear in the whole exhibition is the fact that the exhibition has a strong reference to the ancestral rituals as practised in the past, while at the same time bringing those rituals to the present, through a strong reference to the lives lived by queer people to day. Thus, in a way, this exhibition enables the past to collide with the present, talking to the idea of the contemporariness of this exhibition.

The artist after the performance told CITYLIFE/ARTS that she has completed studying for a masters’ degree in drama at the University of Cape Town, and her undergrade was in something else not related to the arts.

“I currently live in a village not far from east London, and it is where I am learning the ways of those that have since passed on, learning from the elders in the village. It is a nurturing environment that makes one to look at life from a fresh perspective, almost meditative,” she explained the inspiration and context behind her current art practice.

And what made their performance also special is the fact that the audience gets to participate in this performance through joining her in singing South African traditional songs. Tea is a special element whose injection into this body of work has special significance.

In fact, as Yonela rounds up their performance, they invite the audience to partake in the drinking of tea that she serves as part of the performance, after which the audience is invited to another room upstairs within Number Four, the former notorious jail reserved for males, to view the paintings on the walls, which continue the narrative in this exhibition.

The fact that this exhibition is site-specific, taking place in the male section of Number Four, where famous prisoners such as Mahatma Gandhi and former South African President nelson Mandela were part of the people incarcerated there, intentionally made to share cells with common criminals to break their spirits as political activists and freedom fighters is an an accident. It ties in nicely with the story of Yonela’s grandmother who in a way was treated almost like the men in her village. This irony could not be lost to those that attended the opening performance and viewed the paintings.

A part of the 2025 Young/Unframed programme of The Bag factory funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa, this exhibition offers a powerful exploration of memory, history, and queer potentiality, merging installation, performance, and mixed media. In other words, the exhibition delves into the intersections of ritual, legacy, matrilineal histories, and ancestral knowledge, with a specific focus on the dynamics of constructing a feminised ritual space within Constitution Hill’s historically male prison called Number Four. 

Event Details:
Exhibition Dates: 4 – 26 April 2025 
Venue: Number Four, Constitution Hill, 11 Kotze Street, Johannesburg