Johannesburg – Visual artist and member of the artist collective, Occupying The Gallery, Lusanda Ndita, is the winner of the 2024 Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award.
The announcement was made at the weekend.
The Johannesburg-based artist’s work draws from domestic archives in the form of photo albums, oral histories, and identities.
Through these archives, he works to mend the fractures in his identity and sense of manhood by dismantling the images of absent father figures, creating a new silhouette that embodies their lost presence and influence.
During his speech, Lusanda said: “Thank you to my ancestors for putting me on this journey, and also thanks to Absa and the French Institute for giving me this baton to continue the legacy of the late master, Gerard Sekoto”.
The Gerard Sekoto Award is an annual prize given to a South African artist between the ages of 25 and 35 who consistently exhibits outstanding integrity in the quality of their work.
As a result of this partnership, Ndita will travel to Paris for a three-month residency at the renowned Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
French Ambassador to South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi, David Martinon, commended all the finalists: “We know that an artist’s journey is challenging – demanding skill, deep commitment, perseverance, and confidence.
“That’s why the Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award is essential – to support artists as they push creative boundaries and grow their practice”.
Absa, the French Institute of South Africa, and the South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA) celebrated 20 years of supporting the Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award at this year’s ceremony – one of the French Embassy’s longest-running partnerships between the cultural and private sectors.
They all congratulated Lusanda for this tremendous achievement and this year’s Absa L’Atelier Ambassadors, Ezra Appiah of Ghana, Kutlwano Monyai of South Africa, and Moses Oyeleye from Nigeria.
