Sophie-Ntombikayise

Sophie-Ntombikayise culminates Sibande’s series of sculptural installations featuring four generations of women in her family, all of whom worked as domestic servants. These women represent Sibande’s impetus to transcend and interrogate constructions of domestic servitude and expectations of simplicity and submission based on race and gender. As a self-portrait, Sophie-Ntombikayise interjects the artist into the guise of domestic worker. Sibande states, “Adopting a new position as artist, yet celebrating the women in my family, this figure represents my appreciation and acknowledgement of the hardships borne by my family and countless others in South Africa.”