Artists in Conversation | Sekai Machache

Sekai Machache will talk to Carmen Hermo, associate curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, about her artistic practice, recent projects, and studio processes.

About Rachel Maclean

Born in 1989 in Harare, Zimbabwe, Sekai Machache (she/they) is a Zimbabwean-Scottish visual artist and curator based in Glasgow, Scotland. She graduated from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland, in 2012. Her work is a deep interrogation of the notion of self, in which photography plays a crucial role in supporting an exploration of the historical and cultural imaginary. Aspects of her photographic practice are formulated through digital studio-based compositions using body paint and muted lighting to create images that appear to emerge from darkness. Her more recent work incorporates other media and approaches which evoke a sense of the invisible and the undocumented. Machache is interested in the relationship between dreaming, spirituality, and the role of the artist in disseminating symbolic imagery to provide a space for healing against contexts of colonialism and loss.

In 2020, Machache was the recipient of the Royal Scottish Academy Morton Award for an artist working in lens-based media. From 2021 to 2023, she was an artist in residence with the Talbot Rice Residents Program, which supports emerging artists across the United Kingdom. Machache is a founder and member of the Yon Afro Collective which supports women of color in Scotland. She was chosen to represent Zimbabwe at the 60th Venice Biennale in April 2024 as part of a group show titled Undone with Zimbabwe’s pavilion. She has participated in both solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Machache lives and works in Scotland.