Mawande Ka Zenzile was born in Lady Frere, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, in 1986, and gained a BA Fine Art from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 2014, where he is also currently completing his MA in Fine Art. He won the Tollman Award for Visual Art in 2014 and the Michaelis Prize in 2013. Previous solo exhibitions have included Autobiography of Mawande Ka Zenzile: Iingcuka ezombethe iimfele zeegusha at VANSA, Cape Town (2011) and Crawling Nation at the AVA, Cape Town (2009). Group exhibitions include Between the Lines at the Michaelis Galleries (2013); Umahluko at Lookout Hill (as part of Cape 09) and X Marks the Spot at the AVA (2008). In 2014 he completed a residency at Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; he was awarded a residency in Norway in 2008 as part of the Abazobi project, organised by the Arkivet Foundation and the Robben Island Museum. Ka Zenzile has been a regular participant in academic conferences including Between the Lines, Michaelis School of Fine Art and Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig (2013); The Exuberant Project, Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts, University of Cape Town (2012) and Thinking Africa + Diaspora Differently at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (2011). Many of these projects have been accompanied by his performances.