Art as protest and pedagogy: Holding a Thought, the puppetry of Ukwanda

01 August 2025 | Video Production Team Ruairi Abrahams and Nomfundo Xolo. Additional footage The Walk Productions. Photos Retha Ferguson, Dathini Mzayiya and Ruairi Abrahams.

Holding a Thought – the puppetry of Ukwanda opened at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Michaelis Galleries on 23 July 2025, offering a powerful reflection on the intersections of art, memory and climate justice.

Curated by Professor Premesh Lalu of the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) and Dr Kurt Campbell, director of UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art, the exhibition is an interdisciplinary, inter-institutional collaboration that foregrounds puppetry as a form of critical inquiry and creative resistance.

Anchored by the evocative work of CHR Artists in Residence, Siphokazi Mpofu, Luyanda Nogodlwana and Sipho Ngxolo, members of the Ukwanda Puppetry and Design Arts Collective, the exhibition positions puppetry as a dynamic tool for storytelling, redress, and community engagement.

The exhibition frames puppetry as a mode of knowledge production, a creative language through which to interrogate systems of power, reimagine belonging and ‘hold’ space for shared thought.

Presented as part of Michaelis School of Fine Art’s centenary commemorations, Holding a Thought forms part of a series of provocative exhibitions reflecting on the role of art in public life and transformation in higher education.

The exhibition remains open to the public at Michaelis Galleries until 20 August 2025. For more information, visit: Michaelis

#ChooseUCT #Vision2030 #HoldingAThought #UkwandaPuppetry #ArtAtUCT #THEHERDS


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