Dada Khanyisa’s ‘Above and Beyond’ Brings Memory to Life as RMB Latitudes 2026 Standout

Over the weekend of 22 to 24 May 2026, the breathtaking Shepstone Gardens came alive with the artworks of over 300 artists from across Africa and the rest of the world. Under the theme “Oasis”, guests ventured through what was an oasis of artistic expression, tucked away from the everyday buzz of the city.

Independent young artists were given the opportunity to shine, while veterans of the art scene displayed works that reflected years of honing their masterful craft. But an undeniable standout of the art fair was Dada Khanyisa’s Above and Beyond sculptural scene, the art fair’s 2026 Special Project displayed in the Round Room.

Dada Khanyisa Above and Beyond RMB Latitudes image by Anthea Pokroy | What's on in Joburg — Dada Khanyisa in front of their ‘Above and Beyond’ display at RMB Latitudes Art Fair | Image credit: Anthea Pokroy

Dada Khanyisa and the journey to RMB Latitudes 2026

Dada Khanyisa is a Joburg-raised, Cape Town-based visual artist who was hand-picked to develop and construct the 2026 RMB Latitudes Special Project displayed in the Round Room (though hexagonal in shape). In what can be seen as a stroke of fate, Khanyisa had already begun putting together their artwork before their official selection for the fair.

“I started about 6 months ago, 7 months ago. This is in November. So, I started working on the installation prior to being invited to participate. So, it felt like I could align what I was working on with what was needed for this particular fair,” Dada says.

Explaining why Dada was this year’s Round Room pick, Head of Sales at Latitudes, Denzel Nyathi explains: “the Round Room [has historically been] used as a space which welcomes experimentation, departures from artists’ practices, and it’s kind of a room which, in its very unique setting and it’s very unique architectural composition, inspires us as the RMB Latitudes team, and oftentimes inspires great artists.

And Dada Khanyisa, as an independent artist who is really pushing the boundaries of painting and sculpture and sculptural painting and truly exemplifying mixed media, was the most natural choice, I think, for us.”

Dada Khanyisa Above and Beyond RMB Latitudes | What's on in Joburg — Dada Khanyisa’s ‘Above and Beyond’ display in the Round Room at RMB Latitudes Art Fair | Image courtesy of Latitudes Online

A scene in which personal reference evokes a collective memory

Once you step into the hexagonal room, you are greeted by a selection of tableaux that, viewed together, create one scene of a birthday party in a family home. While Dada speaks to the personal nature through which the scene is created, it is not difficult to identify with the various elements of the piece in such a way that evokes a sort of collective memory.

The scene features an old make of television that might’ve been common in many South African households during the early 2000s, and seen onscreen is a frequently meme’d reaction from Ms. Jackson, a woman who was caught out as a cheater in the televised Couple’s Court series and quickly became a major pop culture reference for many young black people following the episode’s virality.

There are also references that the older South African generation could connect with, from a Letta Mbulu record to a reference to a seminal film in the South African struggle for freedom, the 1959-released Come Back, Africa.

The scene evolves beyond the images in the sculptures and comes alive through the personal recollection that each viewer can attain from it; and its three-dimensional nature only adds to its immersion.

The display seemed to resonate with many fair visitors too, earning Dada the 2026 Lexus Best Stand Audience Award, which is awarded annually to the individual or gallery with the favourite exhibition as voted for by the public.

Dada Khanyisa carving | What's on in Joburg

Above and Beyond in the artist’s own words

For Dada, Above and Beyond was never configured to reflect any sense of a collective memory, but the artist sees their personal reflection as a conduit through which collective memory can be invoked, saying:

My personal experiences are almost communal experiences because I don’t live in isolation. We all rub off on each other. All the things, our patterns and habits, are almost contagious as a community, you know?…So, I think I don’t consciously go for South Africa-linked iconography, but…it translates. I think I work through the personal into the collective.

The individual sculptural pieces, which come together as a part of a single scene, are configured from both painting and carving, the “soft” and “hard” of the respective mediums creating a balance that the artist had not expected but welcomed wholeheartedly. Dada describes the scene as such:

Ten works make up this installation that looks like a long supper scene. That was my intention, just to have works in dialogue and conversation, trying to see how they complement and accentuate each other through theme or also just the colour matching.
It has four main figures and there’s a figure on the TV. The point was to create a homelike space, an environment where we would dine as people who are related in some way, cousins or friends. So, there’s a central figure and we’d like to say that it’s her birthday.
It’s her birthday, and everyone else around her is just debating…She’s the main character, so there’s something about a gesture that suggests “refocus the attention on me”, you know? But people are going at each other across the table. And I think I wanted to bring that out because I’m moving away from these still, beautiful, posing people. There’s something about motion. There’s something about people in action that I’ve been attracted to, wanting to explore [it] through my practice.

Complementing the figures are various personal and collective references, from TV screens and media consoles to records, film and spatial references that Dada appreciates and connects to personally but which many others could also derive meaning from. It encapsulates a past that is at once relevant and public, yet distant and personal. Dada explains the scene’s relation to time in reference to a clock that forms a part of one of the sculptures.

“The clock…is actually moving backwards as a way to refer to that looking back in time and reflecting and also just holding onto the past,” Dada says.