People
SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture
Brenda Schmahmann is the author of Through the Looking Glass: Representations of South African Women Artists (2004), Mapula: Embroidery and Empowerment in the Winterveld (2006), Picturing Change: Curating Visual Culture at Post-Apartheid Universities (2013) and The Keiskamma Art Project: Restoring Hope and livelihoods (2016). She is the editor or co-editor of Material Matters (2000), Between Union and Liberation: Women Artists in South Africa, 1910-1994, Public Art in South Africa: Bronze Warriors and Plastic Presidents (2017); she also co-edited (with Kim Miller) a special issue of African Arts on gender (2012), edited a special issue of Textile: Cloth and Culture on intertextuality and parody (2017) and co-edited (with Kim Miller) two special issues of de arte. Her most recent book (co-edited with Federico Freschi and Lize van Robbroeck) is Troubling Images: Visual Culture and the Politics of Afrikaner Nationalism (2020). She has published more than 75 scholarly articles or book chapters as well as many reviews, and has curated two large-scale travelling exhibitions. She has a rating of B2 from the National Research Foundation.
E-mail: brendas@uj.ac.za
Telephone: 011 559 7220
Senior Lecturer
Irene Bronner is a Senior Lecturer with the South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture, in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA), at the University of Johannesburg, in South Africa. She received her D. Litt et Phil in 2016 from the University of Johannesburg (with Prof. Brenda Schmahmann as her primary supervisor; a clip of Irene’s graduation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yj9uSEFfjs). Irene received her MA in 2011 (cum laude, with distinction) from Rhodes University. She held a postdoctoral fellowship with the SARChI Chair in SA Art and Visual Culture from August 2016 to June 2019. In 2019, she received a University of Johannesburg Postdoctoral Research Fellows’ Excellence Award and in 2021, she was awarded a Y1 researcher rating from the National Research Foundation. Her research interests (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1199-9636) centre on feminist studies in the visual arts, with a focus on contemporary South Africa. She works with the intersections of gender, queer and postcolonial cultural theories, examining issues of embodiment, memory, grief and bereavement, and the aftermath of trauma. She has varied experience with lecturing, supervision and examination.
E-mail: ireneb@uj.ac.za
Telephone: 011 559 7225
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Philippa Hobbs (since July 2019)
Philippa Hobbs’s PhD (University of Johannesburg, 2019) examined issues of ideology and female agency in tapestries made at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift, during the Swedish period 1961-1976. She was supervised by Prof. Brenda Schmahmann; a compilation clip of her graduation may be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG_kGsnkUY0. She was instrumental in collating the Power, Gender and Community Art Archive and lodging it at the University of Johannesburg Library. Philippa has co-authored three publications (with Elizabeth Rankin), including Listening to Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke (2011) and Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints (2003). As Curator of the MTN Art Collection (2004-2014), Philippa curated national travelling exhibitions, also editing accompanying publications, notably Messages and Meaning (2005). Since 2019, Philippa has been extending her PhD research to some of the outcomes of the Rorke’s Drift practice, such as the Thabana-li-Mele weavery in Lesotho and Allina Ndebele’s independent workshop in Northern KwaZulu-Natal. She has a C2 NRF researcher rating.
Email: phobbs123@gmail.com
Theo Sonnekus (since May 2021)
Theo obtained a PhD in Visual Arts from Stellenbosch University in 2016 and is currently researching a selection of coffee-table books of homoerotic male nude photography published by Alternative Books in South Africa in the late apartheid period (1981-1991). The project invites critical perspectives on apartheid-era censorship, desire and pleasure, nationalism and heteronormativity, and the politics of multiracial representation. He recently contributed chapters to the Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness (2022) and Troubling Images: Visual Culture and the Politics of Afrikaner Nationalism (Wits University Press, 2020).
Email: theosonnekus@gmail.com
Melissa Gerber (since January 2022)
Melissa Gerber obtained her PhD in Music (University of the Free State) in 2021. In her thesis entitled “(De)coding Contemporary South African Opera: Multimodality and the Creation of Meaning, 2010-2018,” she unpacked the multimodal character of opera production and constructed a framework to map the reciprocal processes of meaning-making between creators, designers, performers, and audiences. Initially trained as a classical vocalist, Melissa received her BMus and MMus degrees in Performing Arts (both awarded with distinction) from the University of Pretoria and a Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance from the Royal College of Music, London. Building on her PhD, her current research focuses on the intersections between opera production and its material remnants within the broader network of visual culture of apartheid South Africa. Her research has been published in conference proceedings in the UK and South Africa, and recently in SAMUS: South African Music Studies.
Email: melissa.gerber@icloud.com
Everyjoy Magwegwe (Since December 2022)
Everjoy Magwegwe was awarded her PhD in Public Management (2021) from the Durban University of Technology with an Action Research study entitled “Community-based strategies for the prevention of gender-based violence in mining communities”. Everjoy received her M.SocSci in Development Studies from Lupane State University. Her postdoctoral project and publications find multi-disciplinary, community-based strategies to target developmental challenges in marginalised communities, using an Action Research methodology informed by the critical emancipatory advocacy paradigm. Her research interests centres on how women, girls and youth participate in and integrate popular and visual culture into everyday life. Her work engages with behaviour change and advocacy theories from a cultural, peace-building studies perspective, with feminism, and community development studies. Everjoy was featured in the 2021 Women’s Month South Africa DUT feature on the power of influential women as researchers.
Email: everjoymagwe@gmail.com
Elaine Sullivan (Since February 2023)
Elaine Sullivan received her PhD in 2020 from the Department of World Arts and Culture/Dance at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she focused on African art history and museum studies. For her thesis, she analysed the works by contemporary African artists featured in the renovated Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the role they played in the so-called “decolonisation” of the museum. Prior to joining the University of Johannesburg, she was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow for the arts of Africa at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In her current research, she works with contemporary Congolese artists who make work inspired by historical creative processes while also highlighting collective Congolese memories of the past 150 years.
Email: esullivan@uj.ac.za
Incoming Postdoctoral Research Fellows
In 2023, Craniv Boyd
Former Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Elia Eliev (2021-2022)
Currently working with a research grant-focused organization in Canada.
Irene Bronner (2016-2019)
Currently Senior Lecturer with the SARChI Chair in Art and Visual Culture, FADA, University of Johannesburg.
Malcolm Corrigall (2016-2018)
Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Bournemouth University, UK., and a Research Associate with the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture, University of Johannesburg.
Annemi Conradie (2019)
Currently Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, University of the North West.
Mathodi Motsamayi (2019-2020)
Currently exploring opportunities in the academic and heritage sectors in KZN.
PhD Candidates and their research projects
Firdoze Bulbulia, “The Fordsburg Women’s Group: Memories of Indian female activism in the 1980s”
Email: moments@icon.co.z
Kate’Lyn Chetty, [Project still to be determined]. (Supervisor: Dr Landi Raubenheimer; Co-supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann)
Email: katiechetty@gmail.com
Hazel Cuthbertson, ” “Ideas of Africanness in Alexis Preller’s Discovery of the Sea Route around Africa mural” (Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann).
Email: hazel.cuthbertson@gmail.com
S’nothile Gumede, “A History of the University of Johannesburg Art Collection” (Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann).
Email: snothile456@gmail.com
Ayobola Kekere-Ekun, “Place branding in advertising campaigns by the Lagos state government” (Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann; Co-superviser: Prof Deirdre Pretorius).
Email: kekereekunayobola@gmail.com
Khanya Mthethwa, “Decoloniality: An investigation of how coloniality of knowledge has impacted on BaVenda and AmaZulu waist belts”(Supervisor: Prof Anitra Nettleton; Co-supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann).
Email: khanyam@uj.ac.za
Jaylin Richardson [Project still to be determined]. (Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Dr Irene Bronner)
Email: 0jaylinrichardson@gmail.com
Sinethemba Twalo, “Affect, Objecthood and Blackness in Dineo Seshee Bopape’s Works” (Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann).
Email: sinethembatwalo@gmail.com
Dineke van der Walt, “Curating Difficult Knowledge: Engagements with Sexual Violence in Exhibitions from the Early 21st Century” (Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann).Email: dineke@vanderwalt.za.net
PhD Graduates
Irene Bronner, “Representations of Domestic Workers in Post-Apartheid South African Art Practice”; Currently Senior Lecturer, SARChI Chair, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg, ireneb@uj.ac.za
Jayne Crawshay-Hall, “Reconceptualising curatorial strategies and roles: Autonomous curating in Johannesburg between 2007 and 2016”; Currently Academic Head at Open Window Institute, jaynecrawshay@gmail.com
Roxy do Rego, “Parodies of Classical Mythologies by Women Artists in Post-Apartheid South Africa”; Currently Art History and Art Practical Lecturer, Humanities Education department, University of Pretoria, roxydorego@gmail.com
Philippa Hobbs, “Ideology, imagery and female agency in tapestry at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift, during the Swedish period 1961-1976”; Currently Postdoctoral Research Fellow, SARChI Chair, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg, phobbs123@gmail.com
Deléne Human, “Censorship and proscription of visual art in apartheid South Africa”(Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann). Currently History of Art, Practical Art and Art Methodologies Lecturer in the Department of Humanities Education at the University of Pretoria, delene.human@up.ac.za
Thabang Monoa, “The exploration of Blackness in Afrofuturist aesthetics” (Supervisor: Prof. Brenda Schmahmann). Currently Lecturer in Art History in the Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town, Thabang.monoa@uct.ac.za
MA and M.Tech Candidates
Angie Lázaro
(Supervisor: Dr Irene Bronner; Co-supervisor: Prof Karen von Veh)
Lerato Maisela
(Supervisor: Dr Irene Bronner; Co-supervisor: Ms Farieda Nazier
Tlotlo Sereisho
(Supervisor Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Ms Bronwyn Findlay)
Khulile Sibanda
(Supervisor: Mr. Amukelani Muthambi and Prof Deirdre Pretorius)
Lira van Staden
(Supervisor Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Prof. Alison Kearney)
MA and M.Tech Graduates
Angelique Bougaard
(Supervisor: Dr Irene Bronner; Co-supervisor: Prof David Paton)
Kate’Lyn Chetty
(Supervisor: Landi Raubenheimer; Co-supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann)
Muziwandile Gigaba
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Prof Kim Berman)
Ra’eesah Hoosen
(Supervisor: Prof Deirdre Pretorius)
Allen Laing
(Supervisor: Dr David Paton; Co-supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann)
Lisa Linossi
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Vedant Nanackchand)
Kailashnee Naidoo (under examination)
(Supervisor: Dr Marlize Groenewald)
Alexa Pienaar
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Prof David Paton)
Nthabiseng Mbale
(Supervisor: Dr Anthony Ambala; Co-supervisor: Landi Raubenheimer)
Kiveshan Thumbiran
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Minnette Vari)
Jaylin Richardson
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Bronwyn Findley)
Xolisa Sibeko
(Supervisor: Dr Marelize Groenewald)
Vanessa Tembane
(Supervisor: Prof Brenda Schmahmann; Co-supervisor: Vedant Nanackchand)
Current B.Tech/Honours Candidates
No candidates in 2022.
B.Tech/Honours Graduates
- Alexia Ferreira
- Sinead Fletcher
- Carey Jayanandham
Visiting Associate Professor – Global Excellence 4.0
Staffan Löfving
Staffan Löfving is a social anthropologist and Head of Subject at the Intercultural Studies unit, the Department of Language, Literature and Intercultural Studies, Karlstad University, Sweden. A former photographer and journalist, Löfving is currently researching visual communication and the social life of images, themes he explores in different European and Latin American contexts and in collaboration with South African scholars and photographers. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork in Guatemala and Colombia, he has published books and scholarly articles on displacement and emplacement, paramilitarism and the state, economic anthropology, and union organizing in times of economic crisis.
Email: staffan.lofving@kau.se
Associated Researcher
Shanade Barnabas
Shanade Bianca Barnabas is an NRF Y2 rated scholar, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg. Her research is at the juncture of culture, indigeneity and heritage. Her current research interest is on how contested heritage is negotiated in societies with a view to critically evaluate the hits and misses in the heritage landscape of societies of conflict.
Email: sbbarnabas@uj.ac.za
Senior Research Associate
Federico Freschi
Federico Freschi is Head of College and Full Professor at Otago Polytechnic, in Dunedin, New Zealand. Prior to Sept 2019, he was the Executive Dean of and Full Professor at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. His primary research interest is into the political iconography of South African public buildings, with a secondary line of research into the construction of the canon of modern South African art. He has published widely on these and other subjects. In 2016, he was the South African curator of ‘Henri Matisse: Rhythm and Meaning’ at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg, the first exhibition of Matisse’s work on the African continent. He is co-editor (with Brenda Schmahmann and Lize van Robbroeck) of Troubling Images: Visual Culture and the Politics of Afrikaner Nationalism (2020). Federico has a rating of C1 from the National Research Foundation.
Email: Federico.freschi@op.ac.nz
Research Associates
Malcolm Corrigall
Malcolm Corrigall is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Bournemouth University. His PhD (SOAS, University of London) examined the history of the Chinese Camera Club of South Africa. During a postdoctoral fellowship with the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture (2016-2018), he researched neglected photographers and photographic traditions in South Africa. His current research interests include digital art in South Africa and the relationship between Nigerian art and politics.
Email: malcolm.corrigall@protonmail.com
Kim Miller
Kim Miller is a Professor and holds the Jane Oxford Keiter Professorship of women’s and gender studies of art history at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. Miller’s scholarship, which examines the relationship between visual culture, gender and power in African arts, includes her forthcoming book, How Did They Dare? Women’s Activism and the Work of Memory in South African Commemorative Art.
Email: miller_kim@wheatoncollege.edu
Paul Weinberg
Paul Weinberg is a well-known and award-winning South African documentary photographer, filmmaker, writer, curator and archivist. He was a founder member of Afrapix and South, the collection photo agencies that gained international recognition for their role in documenting apartheid and resistance to it. Since 1990, he has shifted towards a focus on feature rather than news photography. He is based in Cape Town. Paul has a rating of C1 from the National Research Foundation.
Email: pwein@iafrica.com