Lerato Shadi and Robin Rhode: A Protea Is Not A Flower

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is proud to present A Protea Is Not a Flower, an exhibition featuring contemporary South African artists Lerato Shadi and Robin Rhode in dialogue with the lives and works of painter Gerard Sekoto, and writers Bessie Head and Don Mattera. Curated by Zeitz MOCAA’s Khanyi Mawhayi, the exhibition runs from 16 October 2025 to 15 November 2026.

A Protea Is Not a Flower is a multigenerational conversation that engages with the complexity of the exilic experience. Inspired by Mattera’s poem Protea…(1983), which interrogates colonialism, apartheid, and patriotism through the metaphor of South Africa’s national flower, the exhibition considers exile as both an external displacement and an internal form of isolation. Like the protea—a plant with a resilient root system capable of surviving under harsh conditions—the artists reflect on survival, belonging, and creativity across different geographies and histories.

The exhibition draws parallels between the exiles of Sekoto and Head abroad, and the internal confinement Mattera endured in South Africa. It also reflects on the choices made by Shadi and Rhode in establishing their artistic practices in Berlin, Germany. Through archival material, written correspondence, paintings, installations, photography, film, and newly commissioned murals, the exhibition examines exile as a spectrum of personal and political expression, and as a catalyst for connection, memory, and identity.

Sekoto’s Le Massacre de Sharpeville/Sharpeville Massacre (1960) is shown in conversation with Shadi’s Maropeng (2022), confronting the entanglement of history and the present. Rhode’s Twilight (2012/2013) pays homage to Mattera while resonating with Sekoto’s Sketch for Song of the Pick (n.d.). Both artists also present site-specific murals that transform the gallery walls into spaces that reflect migration, inclusion, home, and exile.

Curator Khanyi Mawhayi says: ‘This exhibition brings together artists and writers across time whose works reveal exile not just as displacement, but as a condition of creativity. In their resilience, they offer us new ways of thinking about belonging, community, and imagination.’

By staging a conceptual and formal dialogue across generations, A Protea Is Not a Flower reveals profound connections between these artists and writers—even in the absence of documented encounters—asking audiences to look Beyond the Gate (1946–47), beyond borders, and beyond inherited national identities.

A Protea Is Not A Flower forms part of Zeitz MOCAA’s ongoing series of in-depth, research-driven exhibitions that centre and contextualise the practices of significant artists from Africa and its diaspora, while engaging with pivotal themes in Pan-African history. Extending beyond the continent’s borders, this programme embraces enduring and emerging entanglements, positioning Africa within a global context, and the world within Africa’s.

As a groundbreaking institution dedicated to preserving and promoting contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, this exhibition reflects the museum’s vision to produce and present cutting-edge contemporary exhibitions, deepen art historical knowledge, amplify the careers of Africa’s most talented artists, strengthen education programmes, and ensure access for all.

Zeitz MOCAA’s exhibition and curatorial programming is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and BMW South Africa.