A Studio of Their Own

Bag Factory is pleased to present A Studio of Their Own, Young Womxn Studio Bursary 2025

“thinking about these artists who would have spent hours alone with their thoughts and imagination… expanding the tradition of women who create and recreate in solitude and communally. I leave… wondering about the hands of these women.” - Ukuzilanda ngobugcisa: When Rain Clouds Gather: Black South African Women Artists, 1940 - 2000 by Athambile Masola

A shared studio on a quiet street in Fordsburg has been a site of reflection, imagination, excavating deep wells of interiority, and ultimately capturing visions and stories on canvas. In the spirit of what Athambile Masola calls ukuzilanda, that is to “fetch[ing] oneself in relation to the past,” Ndaya Ilunga and Nazeerah Jacub plumb the psyche and the environment to contemplate themes of memory, becoming, belonging, self-actualisation and femaleness. Holding their different approaches alongside each other allows us to resist flattening perceptions of womxn’s interior worlds and creative processes. We are able to recognise the “parallel worlds” they move through “and how these worlds [are] rarely encountered simultaneously.” 

Alongside their contrasting styles of figuration and abstraction they hold a shared contemplation of nature as a symbol of lineage. In A Studio of Their Own, we see the manifestation of the privilege of having space to question, reflect, make and be in conversation. Ilunga and Jacub are part of a full and rich narrative of women artists across time and circumstance who have passed through the Bag Factory and other community art spaces before them. They are the 2024-2025 recipients of the Young Womxn Studio Bursary award founded and made possible by Sam Nhlengethwa.