A Self Portrait
About
Sikho Siyotula-Siegemund is a South African–born visual artist and curator based in Potsdam, Germany. Her work reimagines Southern African landscapes as living archives, bringing art, archaeology, and history into dialogue to explore how the deep past can shape alternative futures. She holds a PhD from the Research Training Group Minor Cosmopolitanisms at the University of Potsdam and the University of Pretoria, where she reframed the Southern African Late Iron Age as a site of overlooked cosmopolitanisms.
She is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the South African Antarctic Artists and Writers Programme (AWP) Pilot, a project that expands public engagement with Antarctica through artistic and critical practice. The AWP provides access to the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions aboard the SA Agulhas II, supporting the creation of new work across media. Her research engages climate histories, postcolonial visuality, and emerging technologies to challenge inherited narratives and open new ways of seeing.
-
2023 - Doctor of Philosophy (Visual Cultural Studies), University of Potsdam, Germany,
and University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2015 - Master of Arts (African-European Cultural Relations), University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2011 - Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts), University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2007 - Matriculated at Sutherland High School, Centurion, South Africa.
-
2013 - Present - The University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2026 - The Antarctic Artists and Writers Programme (AWP) Pilot.
Funded by the South African National Research Foundation.
Situated within the broader South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP).
2021 - The Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP).
2016-2021 - The University of Potsdam, Germany.
2016 - The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.
2017-2022 - RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms. Funded by the German Research Foundation.
2015 - Dionysus Sculpture Works (Foundry and Studio), Pretoria, South Africa.
2014 - Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2011-2012 - Everard Read, Johannesburg, and CIRCA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2013-2015 - HANDPICK|JP AKA gallery, Paris, France.
-
2024 - Future Worldlings, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada.
- On Other Polies, Link Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa.
- Plurality, The Javett Art Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.
2021 - Public lecture, to commemorate the South African Day of Reconciliation in 2021. The Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria,
2018 - Minor Cosmopolitanisms, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany.
2015 - Curated, The Hoffmann Collection of Cultural Knowledge, Exhibition accompanying the launch of The Hoffmann Project of Cultural Knowledge, Pretoria, South Africa.
2014 - Nomad Bodies, Exhibition accompanied by a series of public lectures, Antwerp, Belgium.
2013 - Trance Africa, Exhibition, Absa Gallery, Johannesburg.
- Metromusings, Exhibition, Pretoria.
- Hidden Urban Histories, Exhibition, Pretoria.
2012 - Exhibition 2012 Absa l’Atelier.
- CIRCA Gallery team that launched Speak Photographic.
- CIRCA Gallery team that curated, amongst others:
- Bronwyn Lace’s A tendency toward complexity, November 2012.
- Wayne Barker’s Love Land, August 2012.
- Wilma Cruise’s The Alice Diaries, July 2012.
- Strijdom van der Merwe’s Drawing clouds in the Karoo, April 2012.
2011 - Swift Transitions, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, (graduation exhibition).
-
2018 - Minor Cosmopolitan Justice and Aesthetics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
2017 - Doing Cosmopolitanisms: Dynamics of Theory and Practice, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
2014 - Research Exchange, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium, and the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2010 - Artist residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.