Lesiba Mabitsela Studio

Born on the margins of a new democracy & dictated to by the polarised divisions inherited from history - always the outcast, always the outsider, the black sheep of society suffering from the ‘twelfth-man syndrome’ (part of the team, but not quite part of the team).

Mabitsela incorporates costume, video, photography and performance into his work, using his background in fashion design to explore the relationship between post-Imperial and post-Apartheid perceptions of ‘blackness’ and the symbolic markings of Western beauty and aesthetics.
The influence of the Orient on Western design aesthetics has greatly influenced the methodology and theory around his work, encouraging an exploration into the negative spaces between cloth and the “black body” used in contemporary times for material, cultural and religious purposes in Africa. This means that his work has a particular focus on the construction of clothing and the use of clothing as a tool for political resistance.