Media Release
A season of worldmaking and imagining otherwise at Zeitz MOCAA
(Cape Town, Thursday, 28 May 2026): Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is delighted to announce its upcoming 2026–2027 exhibition season featuring IMPRINT, an artist-led studio residency convening Cape Town publishing collectives; and Turning Towards the Sun, a multimedia exhibition featuring newly commissioned films by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, Mati Diop, Jim Chuchu, Wanuri Kahiu, and The Otolith Group, developed through the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) led by Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro. Together, they foreground experimentation and critical discourse that promote new forms of public engagement across Africa and its diaspora.
IMPRINT, co-curated by Nathalie Viruly, and Dr Greer Valley, and supported by Bulelwa Kunene, Angela Muritu and Emme Pretorius, will be on view from 1 October 2026 to 28 March 2028 on Level 2 Elevator Side. The project is an artist-led studio residency that hosts Cape Town publishing collectives in Zeitz MOCAA’s Koyo Kouoh Atelier. The residency positions publishing not as a supplementary outcome of artistic practice, but as its central condition and method. Convening the collectives (B)and Wi(d)th, Medupi Publishing, and Creative Knowledge Resources, the Atelier unfolds a series of working spaces where research, production, and circulation are made tangible, expanding publishing beyond the book to include sound, performance, ephemera, and transmission. The residencies, lasting between three to six months, are extended through an extensive and experimental public programme developed in collaboration with the 2026 University of Western Cape and Zeitz MOCAA Fellows Drawing on these propositions and histories of self-publishing as tools for organising, dissent, and the shaping of subcultures, the Atelier therefore becomes a site of continuous addition and revision, where ideas remain in flux and permeable to its readership. Visitors encounter publishing as a medium that insists on its publicness, embraces contingency, and foregrounds the social and political forms found within. This exhibition is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.
Turning Towards the Sun, curated by Khanyi Mawhayi supported by Dr Phokeng Setai and Dr Greer Valley and assisted by Angela Muritu, Inshaaf Jamodien and Evyn Banawoye, will be on view from 10 December 2026 to 15 August 2027 on Level 4. This multimedia exhibition presents film and media arts from Africa and its diaspora and is inspired by the ideals of Pan-African solidarities. It brings together five artists and filmmakers to explore moving image-making and collective practice on the continent and what Koyo Kouoh called the wider Black geographies of the 21st century. Brought together through the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) and led by Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro, the exhibition presents five commissioned films by Ethiopian director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, Kenyan multidisciplinary artist Jim Chuchu, Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, and The Otolith Group, an interdisciplinary artist collective based in London. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) and BMW.
Dr Greer Valley, Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs, remarks: ‘During our 2026 exhibition season, we have chosen to gather with artists—artists who transform memory into movement, language into commons, and images into forms of agency. The residency and exhibition position the Museum as a place of listening and becoming, where histories are reanimated, and futures rehearsed into being through acts of sequence and serendipity. Here, the smallest gestures carry weight, knowledge remains elastic, and time becomes visceral.’
As a groundbreaking institution dedicated to promoting and preserving contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, this not-to-be-missed exhibition season reflects Zeitz MOCAA’s commitment to producing and presenting cutting-edge contemporary exhibitions and art historical knowledge, enhancing the careers of Africa’s most talented artists in the 21st century and beyond, strengthening its education programmes, and ensuring access for all.
Zeitz MOCAA’s exhibition and curatorial programming is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and BMW South Africa.
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Issued by Zeitz MOCAA Communications.
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Issued by Zeitz MOCAA Communications.
MEDIA TOOLKIT
About Zeitz MOCAA
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is a groundbreaking public not-for-profit institution that collects, preserves, researches, and exhibits contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora; conceives and hosts international exhibitions; develops supporting educational, discursive, and enrichment programmes; encourages intercultural understanding; and ensures access for all.
The Museum’s galleries feature rotating temporary exhibitions, with dedicated space for the permanent collection. The institution also includes the BMW Centre for Art Education and the Koyo Kouoh Atelier, a museum residency programme for artists living and working in Cape Town.
Zeitz MOCAA, situated at the Silo District, South Arm Road, V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa, is open Monday through Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm (last entry at 5.30 pm). zeitzmocaa.museum
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the United States’ largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. mellon.org
About the BMW Group
With its four brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. The BMW Group production network comprises over 30 production sites worldwide; the company has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.
In 2023, the BMW Group sold over 2.55 million passenger vehicles and more than 209,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax in the financial year 2023 was € 17.1 billion on revenues amounting to € 155.5 billion. As of 31 December 2023, the BMW Group had a workforce of 154,950 employees.
The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company set the course for the future at an early stage and consistently makes sustainability and efficient resource management central to its strategic direction, from the supply chain through production to the end of the use phase of all products. www.bmwgroup.com