Artist and curator Khanyisile Mawhayi’s exhibition A Protea Is Not A Flower is a testimony to the labour and love of a generation of artists who poured themselves into their craft relentlessly, despite political shutterings and desperate circumstances that could lead one into a deep mental or physical exile.
According to Mawhayi, the exhibition speaks to the many ways we see and approach exile, including through the lens of writer and poet Don Mattera, who was banished multiple times because of his Pan-African, dissident literary work, or artist and musician Gerard Sekoto, who fled the country to pursue his artistic ambitions and, in truth, left because of his art. Both artists existed in a time where art was a vital voice for those in South Africa who felt exiled: forcefully removed from their homes and families and dictated to about who they should love and where they should sleep.
On a breezy Friday morning, I met Mawhayi near the entrance of the towering Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, three weeks after the exhibition opened on 16 October.
The museum boasts over 100 galleries across 9 floors, each telling stories of artists and creators from around the world, many from the African continent and its Diaspora. It is a space of conversation, allowing awareness of social and cultural anomalies to emerge in Cape Town and beyond. Within A Protea Is Not a Flower, visitors encounter a multigenerational dialogue between artists whose works delve into home, belonging and displacement.
The exhibition attempts to map a constellation of moments where Gerard Sekoto, Don Mattera and writer Bessie Head had crossed paths, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes with curiosity. Alongside the works of these elders, the exhibition connects the voices of artists Robin Rhode and Lerato Shadi, who were commissioned to respond and trace connections between their own practices and the lives and experiences of Sekoto, Mattera and Head.
“The exhibition asks the ordinary person who we are connected to and how we can find inspiration and hope even when we are displaced from what we consider to be home. It aims to show that there are more points of connection between art and literature, and all of it has contributed to the incredible art history and futures of South Africa. It communicates that we have the permission to dream beyond the ideas of nationhood that colonialism proposes,” explains Mawhayi.
A critical part of the exhibition experience is exploring the connections that existed, and still exist, between these figures. Rhode and Mattera’s relationship conjures fond memories of the poet and writer, who lived between pseudonyms, often fleeing Apartheid police. Rhode depicts the façade of the infamous John Vorster Square Police Station, where Ahmed Timol and Steve Bantu Biko were tortured and died in custody. Placed alone at the centre of the gallery, surrounded by pastel yellow walls, the work captures an abhorrent and still unresolved chapter of South Africa’s history.
The works by Rhode and Shadi, curated to intentionally illuminate transnational relationships and the creative impulses of Head, Sekoto and Mattera, feel both credible and authentic, a strong achievement within museum practice. Mawhayi, now an assistant curator at Zeitz MOCAA, delivers this as her first major curatorial project.
Her curatorial strengths appear most clearly in the presentation of the in-depth research and archival material, meticulously arranged to resemble a protea unfolding at the centre of the gallery. The installation opens conversations about the myriad connections between artists, writers, activists, publications and prominent political figures. “A major curatorial strategy for us was horizontal curation where each of us took responsibility for a key figure and conducted in-depth research that would be brought in to contribute to the larger narrative of the exhibition. We also visited the archives of each of these figures and built relationships with the stewards of these archives,” Mawhayi notes.
Botswana appears as an important thread in the exhibition, through the presence and activism of Bessie Head. The writer, much like her comrades, left for better pastures, creatively and otherwise. Closely linked to the theme of displacement, Shadi’s snapshot of a treasured piece of land in Botswana hangs behind Rhode’s evocative painting, honouring both her and Head’s birthplace.
“Genealogical research in the form of a timeline that became a constellation was also a key strategy for us in understanding the points of connection between Sekoto, Head and Mattera. We were in regular conversation with Shadi and Rhode and incorporated their perspectives as we were making the exhibition. Collaboration and inclusivity were key curatorial drivers,” adds Mawhayi.
Though based in Berlin, Rhode and Shadi often return to the themes of “homing” and finding belonging in shifting spaces. Beyond the immediate exhibition, the message becomes clear: these iconic artists took essential risks in their pursuit of home, crafting it wherever they found themselves. Mawhayi and her collaborators have echoed that journey with great sensitivity and intention.
A Protea Is Not A Flower runs until November 15 2026 at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.
