Meta II, Ma Se Kinders Series
Imraan Christian
About the SessionHair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection is a tightly focused, thematic auction that initiates a critical dialogue on the profound significance of hair in contemporary artistic practice. Featuring a cohort of accomplished contemporary artists, primarily those working from the African continent or within the global African diaspora, this selection of works is guided by a singular conceptual mandate: every work turns to hair as a powerful nexus, serving as medium, metaphor, or focal point of exploration.
Hair Matters illuminates the diverse interpretations and artistic vocabularies through which hair shapes identity, memory, and meaning across cultures, nations, and histories. Featuring artists such as Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou (Benin), Ifeoma U. Anyaeji (Nigeria), Sethembile Msezane (South Africa), and Hank Willis Thomas (United States), the auction examines the aesthetics, politics, and sociology of hair, with particular emphasis on African perspectives and the connective threads that link the continent and its global diasporas.
Curatorial Voices: Natasha Becker, Jared Leite, Vida Madighi-Oghu and Sihle Motsa.
About this Item
signed
Exhibited
MIA Photo Art Fair, Milan, ARTCO Booth, 11 to 14 April 2024, another example from the edition exhibited.
Everard Read, Cape Town, Imraan Christian: !Noma/Rooted – Ma Se Kinders, 4 April to 12 May 2024, another example from the edition exhibited.
BASE Milano, Milan, PhotoVogue Festival, 6 to 9 March 2025, another example from the edition exhibited.
Notes
Selected by Curatorial Voice: Natasha Becker and Sihle Motsa.
Ma se Kinders (which translates to “mother’s children”) began in 2017 as a collection of striking portraits. Imraan Christian’s subjects are often adorned in costume and placed within oceanic settings, imbuing them with a sacred, mythical quality. The series explores the 'Coloured' experience – particularly by challenging and rewriting colonial perceptions and narratives surrounding 'Coloured' and Indigenous people. Crucially, the work signifies rootedness in place, belonging, matrilineage, and community, using the creation of mythological characters as a means of identity reclamation.1
Meta II features a young girl floating meditatively in water. Her body is submerged while her head remains buoyant, eyes closed and arms folded toward her chest in a prayer-like gesture. The vibrant orange of her dress contrasts sharply with the sea-green tones that fill the composition. Her braids drift above a haze of seaweed, reading visually as a web that connects history and experience. An ordinary moment or gesture of local life is transformed into something regal and profound.
The ocean is a key device and is central to the artworks interpretation. It evokes histories of migration – the forced transportation of enslaved people across the Indian Ocean to the Cape.2 By presenting a figure floating in water, Christian creates a gesture of rest: a tender, intimate, and spiritual moment tied to self-articulation and the symbolic ascension of the non-white body.
Meta II is a portrait that visually rewrites memory and history. The work emphasises the beauty, and legitimacy of 'Coloured' identity, presenting the figure as an active author of her narrative.
1. Katie de Klee (2021) WePresent by WeTransfer, Imraan Christian: The Photographer Imagines a New South African Mythology, online, accessed 23 January 2026.
2. Ibid.
Provenance
The Georgina Jaffee Hair Matters Collection.
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