2024 International Artist Residency

This Autumn we welcomed our 2024 residents Lilah Benetti from Australia and Ronald Muchatuta from Zimbabwe. Over the course of two months, the artists spent time both in London and Wakefield, exploring the UK’s vibrant art scene and experimenting with the development of their practices.

Throughout their stay in London during Frieze Week, the artists got stuck into a packed programme of activities and events that included visiting Zanele Muholi’s retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, where we met with a member of Tate’s Curatorial team; attending exhibition openings including Tracey Emin at White Cube and Lauren Halsey at Serpentine Gallery; an artist talk at Almine Rech; visits to four art fairs: Frieze London and Masters, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and Minor Attractions at The Mandrake Hotel. We also made visits to more grassroots projects including an opening at Somers Gallery with LataMESA, and South-East London project spaces.

Lilah screened their film ‘Les Somme De Nous’ at Minor Attractions fair as part of their week-long film programme, and we visited a monumental mural permanently installed at Kings Cross Nando’s that Ronald had created in South Africa years before, in collaboration with Spier Arts Trust. The Nando’s collection is the largest publicly-displayed body of contemporary Southern African art in the world.

At The Art House in Wakefield, the artists had time and space to develop their thinking and start work on new projects, making use of on-site facilities such as the dark room and engaging with workshops and the local community. At the end of their time at The Art House, Roald and Lilah participated in an open studios, and additionally had a studio visit with the curatorial team from The Hepworth Wakefield Museum.

ARTIST BIOS:

Lilah Benetti is an Australian Artist and Filmmaker whose practice uses autoethnography – an exploration of written autobiographical and personal narratives to help share different cultures, communities, and personal journeys. Benetti examines the broader social and cultural histories, to explore the merging of gender, sexuality and racial dynamics.

Benetti’s work combines elements of reality and fiction to highlight lost and hidden narratives within global Indigenous Black culture. Drawing on traditional and spiritual knowledge to understand contemporary perspectives, Benetti fosters resistance and free-form expression. They view the boundaries between still and moving images as fluid, employing various techniques and large-scale public installations to push the limits of these mediums.

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Ronald Muchatuta is a Zimbabwean artist who explores social issues, particularly the Zimbabwean diaspora. His work examines the physical, spiritual, and psychological effects of leaving one’s homeland. Muchatuta uses art to communicate and create social and political dialogues with viewers. His works are often described as intense and harrowing, and often reflect his own experience, and contemporary issues faced by many people in Southern Africa. Including migration, identity politics, post-colonialism, and discrimination.

Influenced by the acts of displacement and the relationship between exiles and their homelands, he creates work through illustration, painting, collage, and mosaics. Muchatuta’s artworks are included in numerous private and public collections, having exhibited in Africa and internationally, representing Zimbabwe at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.