Nkhensani Mkhari

Born 1994.

Nkhensani Mkhari is a Johannesburg-based multidisciplinary artist and curator. Their broad praxis spans photography, painting, performance art, sound design, and new media. Their artworks function as multimodal material-semiotic metaphors.

Their keen interest in the intersections between art and technology led them to their first residency with Fak’ugesi digital innovation festival in 2018 curated by Dr. Tegan Bristow, with Brian House and Marc Lee as their mentors. The residency culminated in a multimedia installation exploring themes of their ongoing body of work titled image of transgressionexploring human spatial evolution into cyberspace and the cultural repercussions of that change. In 2019 their VR work titled Coronation of a Holographic Rainbowwas shortlisted for the ZKM and Solitude Web Residency call no. 6, curated by Mary Maggic. The project explored how indigenous ritual ceremonies may be archived using virtual and augmented reality.

In January 2020 they had their first pop-up exhibition Uhm Yeahin Paris/France with Le Ge’enied’ Alex. In September they opened their first exhibition in Johannesburg titled Porous Borders. Nkhensani is a recipient of the Fak’ugesi digital curation residency, the first of its kind in Africa. The exhibition has been on the Fak’ugesi platform since October 2020. They continue to expand in their praxis, synthesizing mediums to evoke new passages of materiality in expand public consciousness.