Mary Sibande is best known for her photography and sculptures that explore the construction of identity and the reclamation of the black female body in a post-colonial and post-apartheid South African context. In 2004, she received a Diploma in Fine Arts from Witwatersrand Technikon, and in 2007 obtained a B-Tech degree from the University of Johannesburg. She is the recipient of the 2017 Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts Award and is currently the 2018-2019 Virginia C. Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard College at Columbia University. Sibande has exhibited her work extensively, most notably, in DESIRE: Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and in 2019 at the 14th Curitiba Biennale in Brazil. Sibande’s works form part of numerous collections such as the Fonds Régionaux d’art Contemporain in Marseille, France, amongst others.