MOCAA Art Club 2026 Exhibition
What does it mean to know where you come from? How do places, people, memories and experiences that shape us influence who we become?
The 2026 MOCAA Art Club invited grade 10 and 11 learners from across Cape Town to explore these questions through contemporary art, experimentation, and collaboration.
This year’s programme takes its point of departure from We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight, a survey exhibition by German- Ghanainan artist, Zohra Opoku. Spanning a decade in the artist’s practice, the exhibition traces a journey of identity, memory, loss, healing, and self-discovery.
At the heart of Opoku’s practice is the idea that identity is never fixed; it is something layered, fragmented and continually unfolding. This concept of identity becomes particularly powerful when considering the experiences of young people. Adolescence is a period of movement, questioning and becoming. Who am I? Where do I belong? What have I inherited? What do I want to keep, change, or leave behind?
Through hands-on workshops, material experimentation, group discussions and critique, learners investigated ideas of identity, memory, heritage, perception, and transformation. Inspired by Opoku, they were encouraged to work across materials and disciplines, allowing photography, textiles, printmaking, collage, drawing and unexpected materials to become tools for thinking.
As Below, So Above introduces the idea that art does not always have to be neat, logical or fully resolved. These young artists challenged traditional rules, embraced experimentation, and questioned established ways of making and seeing. Learners are not expected to arrive with a fully formed artistic identity. Instead, they are invited to explore, question, make mistakes, collaborate, and discover.
The 2026 MOCAA Art Club takes up this idea of unfolding as a creative invitation. Identity is not a single image; it is a collection of fragments, a series of threads, and a process constantly in motion.
And sometimes, like Opoku’s work, it is only by following those threads that we begin to discover where we are going.
For more information, email education@zeitzmocca.museum.
Zeitz MOCAA’s educational programming is generously supported by BMW South Africa.
