Athi-Patra Ruga is a South African artist whose research-led practice spans performance, film, tapestry, stained glass, sculpture, printmaking, and installation. His work explores archives, spirituality, colonial histories, and speculative world-building to examine how contemporary art can reclaim memory and generate new forms of knowledge.
In 2020, Ruga co-founded Victory of the Word (VOW) with curator Anelisa Mangcu. VOW is a non-profit arts and research organisation dedicated to reimagining Southern African knowledge systems through artistic research, archival practice, public programming, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Its work brings together artists, scholars, communities, and cultural institutions to activate archives and develop new models of cultural production.
VOW’s initiatives include the BODYLAND Residency, a research programme supporting long-term artistic inquiry, strategic fundraising to sustain independent cultural practice, and collaborative partnerships such as its work with Gestalt, where embodied research, archival engagement, and collective learning form the basis of its methodology.
Together, Ruga’s artistic practice and VOW contribute to a broader commitment to art as a site of research, dialogue, and knowledge production.
Image Credit : MALIBONGWE TYILO