Presented at the inaugural Africa Basel, the project reimagines mobility, belonging, and the role of art in challenging exclusion.
Courtesy of Africa Basel.
Conceived by Zimbabwean artist and artHARARE founder Richard Mudariki, the Art World Passport is a poetic act of resistance: a symbolic document that reimagines the global art world as a borderless space of movement, connection, and exchange. First launched during Frieze Week New York and recently featured at the inaugural Africa Basel, the project invites artists, curators, and collectors to record their journeys through the art world – stamping their passports at biennales, pop-ups, studio visits, and museums. Yet when Mudariki was denied a Swiss visa to present the work in person, the critique of exclusionary systems in the passport became viscerally real. Mudariki reflects on the project’s evolution, the community it has sparked, and how his absence in Basel became the most potent part of the artwork – transforming a moment of erasure into a call for visibility, mobility, and creative solidarity across borders.
Stephan Rheeder: The Art World Passport transforms an everyday travel document into a symbolic and interactive piece of art. What initially inspired this conceptual shift?
Richard Mudariki: The inspiration came from my own experience as an immigrant, standing in long visa queues and being asked to prove my worth and intentions before I could cross borders, all while navigating the global art world, which often claims to be inclusive and borderless.
The Art World Passport reclaims the travel document as a site of agency, turning something bureaucratic into something artistic, poetic and participatory. It reflects the paradox: as artists, we are invited to exhibit globally, yet often denied the basic right to movement. I wanted to create a symbolic tool that not only critiques this paradox but also allows us to reimagine mobility on our terms as creatives.
Courtesy of Africa Basel.
Ironically, you were denied a Swiss visa to present a project that critiques the very systems of exclusion you experienced. How did your absence shape the presentation of the Art World Passport at Africa Basel, and what kinds of conversations did it spark on the ground?
My absence became the most potent part of the work. The denial turned the project into a real-world lived experience of exclusion. It made the audience confront the real-life consequences of systemic gatekeeping. On the ground in Basel, it sparked raw and urgent conversations about who gets to be seen and heard in these global art spaces, as well as the invisible borders even within so-called inclusive platforms. My absence disrupted the usual artist-presenting-their-work (some call it an artist walkabout) format and instead made the work speak for itself, louder and more honestly. We used one of the passports as our comment book, where visitors could write their comments and expressions, serving as a means of recording and allowing everyone to use the document to archive their thoughts.
The Art Basel Week VISA featured artworks by Portia Zvavahera, Wallen Mapondera, Collin Sekajugo, Richie Madyira, Option Nyahunzvi, Farai Samurai, and yourself. What guided the selection of these artists, and how do their practices speak to the broader themes of access, identity, and transnational belonging?
These artists are all colleagues and part of a community of contemporary artists with which I am affiliated. Like me, they travel, and we have met each other in different parts of the world, where our works were showcased. Each of these artists embodies a unique relationship to identity, movement, and place. Zvavahera’s deeply spiritual canvases, Mapondera’s material explorations, Sekajugo’s social commentary, Nyahunzvi’s totemic narratives, Richie’s layered urban symbolism, and Farai’s cubist African expressions all challenge and expand our understanding of what it means to belong. For Art Basel Week VISA, I didn’t just curate names – I curated voices that navigate boundaries in their unique ways. These artists’ works, individually and collectively, speak to the lived experience of being both rooted and in motion, a central tension in the Art World Passport project.
The Art Basel VISA not only provided access to the artistic world of these artists but also granted access to events and institutions, including LISTE Basel, Photo Basel, Kunstmuseum Basel, and numerous other institutions in Basel during the week.
Ernestine White-Mifetu, Sills Foundation Curator of African Art at the Brooklyn Museum, with her Art World Passport. Courtesy of Richard Mudariki.
The project invites artists, curators, and cultural participants to stamp, archive, and map their movements through the global art world. What kinds of stories or unexpected connections have emerged from this growing network of passport holders?
What has been beautiful is how organically the passport has created a community. We now have a community of over 200 Art World Passport Holders, comprising global art collectors, museum directors, and curators from major art institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the American Folk Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch (South Africa), and the Sanlam Art Gallery in Belville (South Africa), among others. The community forum enables members to engage in conversations about issues of immigration, exclusion, and mobility, as well as essential artworks that challenge existing systems. Additionally, members share places they have visited, great art exhibitions from around the world, creative moments documented in their passports, and, above all, guides and knowledge sharing about contemporary art from Africa and the rest of the world. People share where they got stamped, at an emerging gallery in Harare, a pop-up in Berlin, a studio visit in Cape Town or at a biennale in Lagos.
One passport holder told me they collect signatures of artists in their Art World Passports when they visit them during studio visits or meet them at fairs or exhibitions. Some have had doodles or quick sketches created into their passports by their favourite artists. Above all, there have been spontaneous connections, as artists, curators, or collectors have met at events because they noticed each other carrying the same passport. It has become more than a conceptual object – it’s a social bridge.
Courtesy of Richard Mudariki
While the Art World Passport critiques restrictive visa regimes and institutional gatekeeping, it also proposes a hopeful reimagining of how art and artists can move. In retrospect, how did this balance between critique and imagination come through in the Basel presentation?
In Basel, the critique was unavoidable: my absence, the visa denial letter, and the stories shared by others who had faced similar barriers. However, the installation did not stop at critique. The Art World Passport booth became a site of possibility – people lined up not for borders or access points but for connection.
The Africa Basel team helped facilitate a live screen interaction with me, turning my virtual presence into part of the experience. There was laughter, connection, and the spark of new ideas. In that moment, the Art World Passport project demonstrated what a reimagined system could look like – a system where validation comes not from institutions but from fellow artists, thinkers, and communities.
Your own Art World Passport, displayed alongside your official visa denial letter, became a poignant symbol of the project’s core concerns. Looking back, how did it feel to transform that act of exclusion into part of the artwork – and what reflections has the experience left you with?
My own Art World Passport has documented all the artistic and cultural places I have been to, both as an artist and cultural producer – from the art hub of New York to artist-led spaces in Harare and Johannesburg. I have had fellow artists create works in my passport and use it to keep their contact information, including WhatsApp numbers and emails. When we showcased the Art World Passport at the 2024 Cape Town Art Book Fair at the Norval Foundation, I collected the institution’s stamp and comments from authors and art critics.
The visa denial letter, itself stamped by the Swiss Consulate in Pretoria, has become the latest addition to my passport. Transforming the act of exclusion into an artwork in the Art World Passport was an emotionally charged experience, both professionally and personally. I was sad not to be there in person at Africa Basel, but that exclusion made it resonate more deeply than I ever expected. It reminded me that, as contemporary artists, we can transform resistance into a source of power. That denial letter was meant to exclude me, but instead, it amplified the message. It reminded us why the Art World Passport matters, not just as a concept but as a tool of resistance, visibility, and hope.
Africa Basel was open from June 12 to 22, 2025.
