Yonela Makoba, Zizi Masizana and Palesa Raba
2026
We are happy to announce that three artists from South Africa, Yonela Makoba, Zizi Masizana, and Palesa Raba, have received the Thami Mnyele Foundation award and will stay at the residency in October. They were selected in collaboration with Afrovibes Festival. During their stay, on October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, at Framer Framed, Yonela will present her performance iTi Ritual Studies, performed together with Zizi and Palesa.
Yonela Makoba is a transdisciplinary artist and cultural worker. In 2025, she completed her MA in Theatre and Performance at the University of Cape Town. In her artistic work, she moves between ritual, performance, printmaking, movement, sound, photography, and installation. For Makoba, art is like a ceremony, a communion. An invitation to listen, to remember, and to return. She draws her artistic inspiration from indigenous knowledge systems, ancestral memory, matriarchal wisdom, and the body as an archive. In her work, she is guided by the matriarchal archive and the transmission of traditional ritual knowledge from one female generation to the next.
Zizi Onkabetse Masizana is an emerging performance artist and cultural worker. Her embodied practice and research are a plea for the exploration of the historical archives and sites of the white Afrikaans community, as an investigative historical practice. Through her research, she creates interventions that question, undermine, and translate historical narratives into critical and sensory experiences.
Palesa Raba is an emerging interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Cape Town. In her work, she explores the intersections between performance, the human experience, and empathy. She was educated at the University of Cape Town and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, specializing in theatre making. She currently works as a directing intern at Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.
Yonela Makoba Instagram