Podcast Season 2

South Africa is preparing to take the global stage once again. Art Periodic South Africa (A°P), in partnership with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) and with Latitudes Online as Strategic and Media Partner, is proud to unveil the governance framework for the South African Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2026).

Emma van der Merwe, Director of Everard Read Gallery Cape Town, joins Refiloe Mpakanyane to talk about the quiet contracts that hold the art world together — trust, instinct, and love for the work itself. In this conversation, she lifts the curtain on the energy and potential driving South Africa’s art scene, reflecting on the delicate balance between representing artists and believing in their long game — with buoyancy at the heart of it all.

The accessibility of art has been a perennial topic of discussion in art circles. While art galleries and museums are theoretically open to all, social, economic, educational, cultural, class, and racial barriers often complicate access in practice.

Latitudes’ Chelsea Selvan caught up with Dexter Wimberly, the American entrepreneur and Hayama, Japan–based curator redefining contemporary narratives.

What We Don’t See: A Sensory Rebellion explores how art moves beyond the visible, revealing a world perceived through sound, texture, rhythm, and silence. The exhibition questions the dominance of sight in the way we experience and interpret art, reimagining perception as a multisensory field where emotion, material, and memory shape the act of seeing.

Conflict and war shape our experiences and definitions socially, and art is no different. Most artists from conflict-affected regions find their work defined by these circumstances, whether they embrace or resist this lens. Since April 2023, many Sudanese art exhibitions have been framed politically or nostalgically, but as a curator, I ask: who is thinking of the art itself? How does the environment affect visual memory and artistic production?

Belief is firmly rooted in Black South African cultures, not only as theory, but as a way of belonging and being. Faith is nurtured and strengthened by shared practice, repeated gestures and communal bonds. The artworks shown here invite viewers to consider how belief shapes identity and how a sense of oneness grows when individuals search for meaning together. This exhibition aims to encourage us to focus on our shared human need for connection and fullness rather than the differences that exist across beliefs.

This curatorial exhibition aims to bring together African artists whose practices move through ancestral memory, spiritual lineage and the living archive. This exhibition considers how contemporary art functions as a vessel between ancestral resonance and a space of renewal. Here, this history is not only seen as a safeguard but also reshapes the way in which artists reimagine and create a sense of belonging. These artists aim to resist the confines of Eurocentric frameworks, offering African art as an evolving practice that is spiritually rooted. Rather than positioning African art as a static tradition or a symbol of postcolonial struggle, Living Archives: Ancestral currents remembering, resonance and renewal aims to invite viewers into a space of contemplation, connection, and transformation. Through a curated selection of diverse practices, the exhibition reveals how Contemporary African draw on the depth of their cultural inheritance – personal, spiritual and historical – to craft work that is complex, intimate, and resistant.

On this episode of the Latitudes Podcast, Refiloe Mpakanyane is joined by Heba El Kayal. Heba is a curator, consultant, writer and researcher, originally from Cairo.

In the Between: States of Becoming is a contemporary art exhibition exploring the psychological and emotional terrain of transition moments suspended between stability and chaos, clarity and confusion. The exhibition presents a raw and resonant look at the human condition through the lens of mental health, focusing on the invisible yet transformative process of change.

In her novel En compagnie des hommes, Ivorian writer Véronique Tadjo gives voice to the Baoba tree. The tree, symbol of great wisdom, speaks and awakens the memory of humanity, as a deadly and incurable virus looms and threatens the human race with extinction. In this way, Véronique Tadjo revives the African narrative tradition of giving voice to plants, animals, and other inanimate natural elements, which thus become privileged observers of the humans with whom they coexist.

To mark the opening of the RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, Marcus Neustetter—supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum Pretoria—presented a live drawing and building projection. Rooted in his long-standing preoccupation with maps and the lines that divide and occupy territories, the work responds to today’s metacrisis with a provocative question: Are we following pre-drawn maps so rigidly that we no longer perceive what is truly happening in the territory itself?

We dig into how Millennials and Gen Z are redefining collecting: preferring more accessible price points, buying through auctions, supporting newer galleries, and leaning into art fairs not just for browsing but for community, identity, and story.

Chapter 2 of the Latitudes Podcast, which looks at connecting the stories from the continent, takes us to Lagos in this week's episode.

In this episode of the Latitudes Podcast, Refiloe Mpakanyane talks to Moroccan-born and raised Touria El Glaoui about the impact of her cultural work.

Listen in as Thandiwe Muriu shares her journey from a DM by 193 Gallery to having her work acquired by the UNESCO Art Collection, unpacking her creative process and hopes for Kenya’s art scene.

The episode happens under the aegis of revealing the realities and hidden truths of his studio practice; as well as unpacking the lessons he has learnt along the way and the events that triggered growth and change in himself and his creative practice.

As a distinction, perhaps our method of curating around absence begins with asking: who is not represented? This line of enquiry only opens the door to further scrutiny. 

Meet our 2025 ANNA Award Winner!

It should be in the interest of any good institution to consistently question itself and its ways of working. In the case of the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA), the question it’s asking itself is this: What kind of impact does our work have – on us, our students, our faculty, and the world around us?

The analogue art world faces mounting challenges – from rising rental costs for gallery and studio spaces to depreciating local currencies, which make participation in international art fairs increasingly expensive for South African art dealers.

For the last few months, the interdisciplinary arts space, The Centre for the Less Good Idea, has been revisiting work it’s created over the last two years, and building towards its 11th Season. Taking place at The Centre from 26 to 30 November, Season 11 takes the form of a five-day festival of visual art, dance, theatre, site-specific installations, pop-up performances, and talks.