b. 1981 Polokwane, South Africa

Dineo Seshee Bopape’s sculpture, video and performance works are concerned with the mythologies and realities of African identity, the power of ritual, and the intersection between objects and memories. As a sculptor, she often takes on the role of the bricoleur, gathering cast-off objects and bodily detritus (tampons, hair, tissues) to create assemblages that are psychosexually charged, geographically allusive, and littered with triggers for social and personal recollection. Bopape will often use her sculptures as backdrops or props for her performances and videos, as she does in her video Dreamweaverr (2008), in which the artist is adorned with a tumor-like array of white sacks, whilst engaging in a ceremony whose origins remain obscure. This ritualistic aspect of Bopape’s work is similarly present in her video Feeling Cosmic (2008), in which she appears as a psychedelic earth Goddess, whose ghostly visage seems to exude equal parts magnanimity and wrath.