Standard Bank Art Gallery opens its doors for the first time since Covid with a brand new immersive exhibition titled We Are Culture. Standard Bank Gallery curator and manager Dr Same Mdluli, alongside creative director Bee Diamondhead, curated a multi-disciplinary exhibition that features 13 artists interrogating what culture means to them. The exhibition aims to dissect what culture should be and reveals where we may be headed.

“WE ARE CULTURE is not about tradition. It’s not about the gatekeepers or the highbrow discourse. This show is about the artists, whose visions are so clear that giving them the resources and the platform helps us more than it helps them,” Bee Diamondhead says. “We are in uncertain times, and it is our role to seek out these voices – voices that illuminate things we haven’t fully realised about the world around us. Creativity fights the rigid ways of thinking that we adopt as a mechanism of survival.”

The exhibition promises a forward-focused and layered, yet light-hearted exploration of cultural identity by these young artists, who represent a range of disciplines and mediums including music, fashion, performance art and painting. Some of the highlights of the exhibition include work by journalist, DJ, and queer activist Lelo Meslani; performance artist Wezile Harmans; jeweller, sculptor and photographer Philisa Zibi and textile artist Rebecca Moolman.