The New Contemporaries Award was established in 2017 out of the belief that "the arts are essential for fostering creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills." It's a joint initiative between the UJ Art Gallery and MTN SA Foundation to prioritise the local arts sector for social investment.
The open call for curatorial applications was launched during the Free State Arts Festival in Bloemfontein on Sat, Jul 6, 2024. Out of 37 submissions judged by five members of the award's Legacy Panel, Amogelang Maledu was chosen as the 2025 – 2026 winning curator.
According to Dr. Dineke Orton, curator of UJ Art Gallery and one of the panel members, "Amogelang is a very impressive young curator. Not only is she passionate about working with artists, especially those who are often overlooked, but she is also skilled in translating their unique narratives in exciting ways for audiences." In addition to Orton, the Legacy Panel is made up of four previous New Contemporaries Award-winning curators, namely: Portia Malatjie, Dr Nontobeko Akoi-Jackson, Khwezi Gule, and Melissa Goba.
Maledu is an interdisciplinary art practitioner who works between curating, research, and sessional lecturing. She's a member of the University of Cape Town's (UCT) Works of Art Committee, where she drives the institution's art acquisitions and curations.
As the New Contemporaries curator of 2025 – 2026, Maledu will spend the year researching contemporary and emerging South African visual art practitioners, especially those working in digital or virtual formats. This includes traveling to studios, galleries, and museums in all of the country's provinces, studying current literature, and consulting with other specialists in the field. Informed by these experiences, Maledu will nominate four artists to take part in an exhibition that she will curate, set to open at UJ Art Gallery in 2026.
Maledu's work as this year's prize winner is central to advancing the ongoing mandate of MTN SA Foundation and UJ Art Gallery to encourage exploration of the relationship between art and technology. "I am most excited about the VR possibilities because there is an element of technology that will accompany these exhibitions, that I haven’t really worked in before," she says.
Watch this space for an interview with Amogelang Maledu. You can follow her on Instagram @amomaledu.
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