Umthwalo Usobhokweni, 2026
Mixed media with found objects
160 cm x 107 cm x 32 cm
Artist’s Statement
Thinking Through Things Series
My work stems from a fascination with found objects and their capacity to function as visual textures within the urban landscape of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Central to my practice is an exploration of the city as a site of constant negotiation—a contested space shaped by overlapping histories, cultural identities, economic realities, and the enduring legacies of apartheid between people, commodities, and the social structures that govern everyday life.
These tensions have become integral to contemporary post-apartheid urban discourse. The movement of people into the city, along with the material traces they leave behind, forms an important point of departure in this work. The green sacks, commonly associated with informal trade and the transportation of goods, serve as symbols of commerce, migration, survival, and accumulation. They evoke a highly commercialised environment marked by both opportunity and precarity, while simultaneously highlighting the visible inequalities between those with access to resources and those without.
This work responds to contemporary debates and social tensions surrounding issues of migration, belonging, and economic exclusion in South Africa. The work reflects on the unease experienced by individuals who have crossed borders in pursuit of better opportunities, as well as by those who feel increasingly displaced within their own communities due to persistent socioeconomic inequalities.
The domestic setting, represented by the meticulously tiled floor, becomes a metaphor for the home as a space where broader political and economic tensions are internalised and experienced not only negotiated in public spaces but are also deeply felt within the intimate sphere of everyday life.
