Profile - Qondiswa James

NIGHT TALK

Celebrated artist and activist Qondiswa James is performing at the National Arts Festival from tomorrow. The play is titled “All my ex-lovers are dead”. And from the 7th of August her play, Amaxelegu, will be at the Market Theatre.

Guest: Qondiswa James, Artist / activist

• Her background / being an cultural worker
• Staging public art interventions
• Her play at the National Arts festival + market theatre
• The role of an artist in SA today

QONDISWA JAMES

Qondiswa James is a freelance cultural worker living between Cape Town and Johannesburg. She is an award-winning writer and theatre-maker, performance artist, film and theatre performer, installation artist, arts facilitator and activist. She has received her Masters in Live Art, Interdisciplinary and Public Art and Public Spheres at the Institute of Creative Arts. Her work engages the socio-political imagination towards mobilising transgression.

She has staged public art interventions at Infecting the City, Live Arts Festival, FNB Art Joburg, Centre for the Less Good Idea, Les Rencontres a L'échelle (France), Arcade (Makhanda), and Live Art Network Africa. Her onscreen appearances include High Fantasy (DIFF 2018 Best South African Film Award, Artistic Bravery Award), and Letters from the Continent (Holland Film Festival). 

In 2023 she staged Retch, a new original solo work, as part of the inaugural Kippies Fringe season at Market Theatre. She was also a resident artist at AiiA Lab (Switzerland), where she created a new work in process, What He Has Done.