Nomusa Makhubu

Nomusa Makhubu is a senior lecturer of art history at the University of Cape Town's (UCT) Michaelis School of Fine Art, and has a PhD in art history from Rhodes University.

Makhubu's research focuses on art interventionism, popular culture and social engagement in African visual art. Recognising the need for broader creative mentorship, collaborative practice and socially responsive arts pedagogy, her research is aimed at developing mechanisms for incorporating socially engaged curricula in the creative arts.

Makhubu co-edited a special issue of Third Text in 2013 and is currently working on a book manuscript. Makhubu is a member of the South African Young Academy of Science and the College Art Association International Committee, the chair of the Africa South Art Initiative, and a member of the research team for Comparing "WE's": Cosmopolitanism, Emancipation, Postcoloniality at Lisbon University's Centre for Comparative Studies. She is a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. She was an Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation Research Fellow in 2010, an African Studies Association Presidential Fellow in 2016, and an Institute for Creative Art Writing Fellow in 2017.

Makhubu is an alumna of the College Art Association-Getty International Program. She teaches in the Stanford University Bing Overseas Studies Program. In 2017 she was the recipient of the Harvard-UCT Mandela Fellowship.

Nkule Mabaso

Nkule Mabaso, graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town (2011) and received a Masters in Curating at the Postgraduate Programme in Curating ZHdK, Zürich (2014). She has worked as Assistant Editor of the journal OnCurating.org and founded the Newcastle Creative Network in KwaZulu Natal. Currently she works as a curator of the Michaelis Galleries at the University of Cape Town. She is a PhD Candidate at Rhodes University as part of the research team SARChI Chair 'Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa'. Her research focuses on the KwaZulu Natal interior and calls for the development of context specific policy that will provide the strategies for the mechanisation of the economic potential of culture in the context of small cities and large towns in South Africa.