New gallery to open doors at Maboneng

StopSign Art Gallery, the brainchild of Zama Phakathi, will be dedicated to supporting mid-career and emerging South African artists.

Phakathi said the space will host regular exhibitions as well as music and dance performances.

“This creative space aims to give opportunities to young people to exhibit their works and explore working with other artists,” she said.

Born in Johannesburg in 1991, Phakathi was raised in an artistic family and displayed a “creative flair” from an early age.

After matriculating Phakathi went on to study directing for theatre and TV at Wits University’s Drama for Life.

Since then, she has been involved in several art projects, curated shows for various galleries and studios, and in 2012, worked as a project co-ordinator for the Soweto Artist Residency.

The gallery will open with a group show, The other side of Jozi.

“This city holds promise; some dreams materialise while others become a shot in the dark, and only luck is refuge,” she said.

“This city has seen ordinary boys and girls from all corners of the land become great men and women, [and] in some cases, the opposite.”

Phakathi said that this exhibition, with works by Andrew Ntshabele and Senzo Shabangu, will refocus the lens and take a closer look at the “other side of these great walls”.

“[It takes] a closer look at a dream sold to men and women of this country, to urban and rural dwellers… It draws closer to the false promise and the reality of what this city really is,” she said.

“This is Johannesburg, and everything goes. Some say ‘Go big’ or ‘Go home’, and most go big, never to return to themselves.”

StopSign Art Gallery will open on 3 April at 302 Fox Street, Maboneng Precinct.

Details: 078 207 0688; www.stopsign.co.za