At the National Arts Festival 2026, the MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award Exhibition foregrounds sound, land, breath and belonging as sites of collective imagination.
23 June 2026
The UJ Art Gallery, in partnership with the MTN SA Foundation and with institutional support from Iziko Museums South Africa, presents ‘Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between’, the 2025–2026 MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Award Exhibition, at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda from 26 June to 5 July 2026.
Curated by 2025–2026 MTN x UJ New Contemporaries Curator Award recipient Amogelang Maledu, the exhibition brings together the practices of Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Zara Julius, Thato Makatu and Unathi Mkonto. Rather than settling into a singular thematic framework, ‘Holding sp(l)ace for the in__between’ positions contemporaneity itself as an active presence, inviting audiences into a space of negotiation, participation and critical reflection.
Across installation, sculpture, sound and spatial interventions, the artists engage questions of collective survival, memory, home, land and Black feminist thought. Buhlungu explores histories of Black mobility through sound and listening, while Julius approaches breath as both archive and act of endurance. Makatu considers home and loss through reparative acts of making, and Mkonto imagines alternative futures through architecture-informed sculptural forms grounded in care and sustainability.
Together, these practices hold open a generative space of uncertainty, offering timely reflections on how we live, remember and imagine together in an increasingly complex world. Located at the Gallery in the Round and New Gallery, The Settlers Monument, this compelling exhibition marks another significant chapter in the MTN SA Foundation and UJ Art Gallery’s ongoing commitment to nurturing contemporary South African artistic and curatorial voices.
This exhibition will be on view at Gallery in the Round and the New Gallery, in Makhanda, from 25 June until 5 July 2026.
