UJ Art Gallery and MTN SA Foundation proudly present MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award Exhibition at the National Arts Festival 2026.

UJ Art Gallery, in partnership with the MTN SA Foundation and with institutional support from Iziko Museums South Africa, proudly presents the 2025 – 2026 rendition of the MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award (NCA) Exhibition – Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between​, curated by Amogelang Maledu. Presented at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda from 26 June – 5 July 2026, this curated group exhibition brings together the work of Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Zara Julius, thato makatu, and Unathi Mkonto.

Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between is situated within the complexities of the contemporary moment, refusing thematic closure to make contemporaneity itself a character of the exhibition engaging questions of refusal, collective survival, and Black feminist thought through sound, land, home, and breath. Distinct in approach yet united in their provocation, each artist navigates the exhibition’s in-between through the particularities of their practice.

Buhlungu’s iterative sound installation, rooted in gospel and diasporic memory, engages histories of Black mobility and collective listening. Julius, who describes her work as a chamber orchestra of breath, uses live instrumentation and layered sonic composition to explore breathing as both collective survival and an archive of ancestral continuity.

makatu unpacks ideas of home, loss, and Black middle-class identity through paper-based modelmaking, printmaking, and installation – framing the process as reparative play within the threshold of the medium’s ambiguous impermanence. Mkonto leans into his architecture-informed practice – approaching matters of land and the built environment through wooden sculptural forms that imagine sustainable and human-centred futures grounded in agriculture and collective care.

“Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between refuses the general framework of themed exhibitions and instead makes contemporaneity a character of the show. The space holding becomes an open process of negotiating ideas, while the physical place (the exhibition itself) is where intervention and collective participation become possible,” says Maledu, winner of the 2025-2026 MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Curator award.

Her research engages, broadly, with the curatorial as a research framework, particularly in Black popular cultures and sonic-based cultural practices.

Re-launched in 2022, the MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award builds on the strategic partnership between the MTN SA Foundation and the UJ Art Gallery – a collaboration that has been flourishing since 2017. This exhibition marks a significant milestone in that ongoing relationship.

The award is central to the Foundation’s commitment to supporting South Africa’s arts sector and creating opportunities for promising young talent. Through this initiative, the MTN SA Foundation and UJ Art Gallery empower emerging curators by providing curatorial and institutional support, helping to launch their careers and develop the next generation of contemporary South African artists and curators.

The exhibition itself reflects this shared commitment to critical artistic practice and socially engaged cultural dialogue. This platform continues to create spaces where artists and audiences can engage with work that speaks to contemporary realities, while expanding access to meaningful cultural participation.

Exhibition Venue: Gallery in the Round and New Gallery, The Settlers Monument , National Arts Festival, Makhanda

Dates: 26 June – 5 July 2026

About UJ Gallery

The UJ Art Gallery, located at the University of Johannesburg’s Kingsway Campus in Auckland Park, is a dynamic platform for showcasing art. It features a permanent collection of over 2,000 diverse artworks, with a focus on promoting artistic expression, fostering engagement with contemporary art, and nurturing the Johannesburg arts ecosystem. The gallery hosts curated exhibitions, educational programs, and public events, aiming to create a space for dialogue, reflection, and inspiration.

About the MTN Group

Launched in 1994, the MTN Group is a leading digital operator whose purpose is leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress. The MTN Group is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in South Africa under the share code ‘MTN’. Our Ambition 2030 strategy seeks to accelerate impact and empower Africa through platforms of choice for consumers, homes and businesses.

About Amogelang Maledu

Amogelang Maledu is an interdisciplinary art and culture practitioner working between curating, research and sessional lecturing. Her research engages, broadly, with the curatorial as a research framework particularly in Black popular cultures and sonic-based cultural practices. Maledu is currently the Curator of Art for Global Africa at Iziko Museums of South Africa and affiliated with the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Institute for Creative Arts and Creative Knowledge Resources respectively. From 2018-2025 she was a committee member for UCT’s Works of Art Committee, responsible for the institution’s art acquisitions, collection and curations.

In 2025 she was announced as the recipient of the 2025-2026 MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Curator: a prestigious opportunity awarded to a curator in South Africa. Meanwhile, in 2024 she was awarded Best Emerging Curator, conferred by South Africa’s National Institute for Humanities and Social Science (NIHSS).

About Simnikiwe Buhlungu

Simnikiwe Buhlungu is a Johannesburg-born, Amsterdam-based artist whose research-led practice explores how knowledge is produced, by whom, and how it circulates. Working across sound, text, installation, and publishing, she investigates socio-historical and everyday phenomena through layered ecologies of listening and sensing. Her work often engages questions of (im)material presences and chronologies through methodologies that leave gaps for slippages, questions and that which is not articulable. Recent projects span major international exhibitions including Kunstinstituut Melly, Chisenhale Gallery, and Kunsthalle Bern, and she was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (2020–2022).

About Zara Julius

Zara Julius is a Johannesburg-based transdisciplinary artist and researcher working across sound, installation, print, and social practice. Her work engages archival material—real, imagined, and embodied—to explore Black cultural innovation, fugitivity, memory, and the politics of time through what she describes as “rapture” as a method. Through extensive research and collaboration, she interrogates the Black sonic, the archive, and the death-life matrix as tools for rethinking history and affect. She holds degrees from the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand, and has exhibited internationally at institutions including Weltmuseum Vienna, Kunstinstituut Melly, and Akademie der Künste Berlin.

About thato makatu

thato makatu is an artist whose practice explores domestic space, memory, and the social life of objects. Working through installation and material experimentation, they investigate how everyday environments and home-based objects carry, activate, and reshape personal and collective memory over time. Their work draws on world-building, zine culture, and digital environments to think through intimacy, space, and lived experience. makatu’s practice is grounded in a tactile, research-driven approach to storytelling through objects and spatial interventions.

About Unathi Mkonto

Unathi Mkonto is a Cape Town-based artist working across drawing, sculpture, installation, and architecture-informed practice. Self-taught in art with a background in architecture from Nelson Mandela University, his work sits at the intersection of art, design, and spatial thinking. Mkonto explores enclosure, structure, and built environments through material and conceptual investigations that reflect on lived space and social form. He has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions including Juxtapositions (Stevenson Amsterdam, 2023) and Enclosed Camp (Open 24 Hours Gallery, 2022) and has participated in numerous national and international group exhibitions and residencies.

Disclaimer – All events taking place in this venue may be photographed and video recorded for marketing, archival, and reporting purposes. Attending this event grants the University of Johannesburg permission to use and publish such media, recorded materials, and footage for institutional purposes. Please note that the views and perspectives expressed by – or perceived to be expressed by – creative work presented under the auspices of the University of Johannesburg do not necessarily reflect those of the University.

Surprise Nkomo
surprisen@uj.ac.za
011 559 1315
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