Senzeni Marasela is an interdisciplinary artist whose oeuvre encompasses performance, photography, video, embroidered textiles, printmaking, and installation. In 1998, she completed her art studies at the University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg. Her work has been exhibited widely in South Africa, Europe, and the United States and is included in important international collections. In 2015, Marasela was represented at the 56th Venice Biennale. She lives and works in Soweto, South Africa.

At the center of the selection of works acquired for the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen is a red dress. Theodora Mthetyane, the fictional alter ego of the artist Senzeni Marasela, received it as a gift from her husband Gebane when he left the rural countryside for the big city of Johannesburg to find work there. In Xhosa culture, the ornately printed Ishweshwe dress is worn by married women and is common among the rural population. Theodora also wore it every day while she waited in vain for years for Gebane to return. Senzeni Marasela, who uses Theodora to allude to her own mother’s story and the situation of many South African women during the apartheid era, wore the dress herself every day for an extended period of six years (2013–2019). With this poignant performance, she embodied Theodora’s story, dedicated to the situation of waiting, loneliness, and hope, and experienced different reactions ranging from identification to discrimination. The project “Waiting for Gebane” culminated in Marasela’s first major institutional solo exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA in 2020, which included the groups of works presented here.

The Friends of K20K21 received generous financial support for the realization of the K21 Global Art Award from the Reydan + Roger Weiss Foundation.