ZA@Work
June 19, 2026 - December 25, 2026
SARB Museum
The exhibition ZA@WORK highlights the heartbeat of the South African economy, paying homage to the everyday worker.
It visually chronicles the work of ordinary South Africans whose labour constitutes the foundation of our economy. Two key paintings, S E B Ngcobo’s Labourers and Bill Ainslie’s Farm Workers, are complemented by Dorothy Kay’s Commerce, forming the nucleus of the show.
A rich history of the land and the work done there is captured by Penny Siopis’s magisterial Al Fresco. Merging illustrations from old history textbooks of early gold mining on the Witswatersrand and diamond mining in Kimberley with extensive washes of red and golden yellow, Siopis uses collage to foreground South Africa’s history of resource extraction.
The theme of labour is extended in works by Gerard Sekoto, Durant Sihlali and Sam Nhlengethwa, which depict urban life and the city’s evolution. Together, these artworks trace a vivid history of South Africa’s workers, the lives they lead and the culture they forged for themselves.
