Artist Database

Born in Barberton in 1982, Mary Sibande received a Diploma in Fine Arts from the Technikon Witwatersrand in 2004 and an Honours degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2007. In her work (installations, photographs, sculpture) Sibande confronts the intersection of race, gender, power and labour in a post-apartheid South Africa through her character Sophie, a lavishly dressed domestic worker who, through her dreams, explores an alternate, extraordinary identity for herself.

Sibande represented South Africa at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies such as the Smithsonian Fellowship in Washington DC and the Ampersand Foundation Fellowship in New York. Her works are in prominent public collections including: Iziko South African National Gallery,Cape Town; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris.