For the month of November 2020 the billboard on the M2 West Freeway, facing traffic travelling West, Faraday, Johannesburg was occupied by the artwork of Oratile ‘Papi’ Konopi⁣⁣.

⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣The piece falls within a body of ‘Ênê’ (2017-), the Setswana genderless pronoun referring to ‘him’ or ‘her’, is an artistic body of work which Konopi initially developed as a way to begin to explore what he understood as a ‘matrix of masculinities’, and ideas which surround the masculine. The work became saturated with endless entanglements, ambiguities , contradictions and multiple potentialities of ideas around gender and sexuality. In these complexities, Bua Le Ênê (2018-) began to develop. This is a continuation of the Ênê series, and focuses on gender relations, thinking through the site of popular imagery and language to foreground a conversation around constructed gender relationships and how they are negotiated on a daily basis of people's lived experiences. ⁣⁣

Oratile ‘Papi’ Konopi is a multi- disciplinary visual artist, writer, and curator with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand. Konopi is a curator and integral part of the BKhz Studio & Gallery based in Braamfontein. Konopi’s work is influenced by his daily migration between different spaces, multiple communities and ‘positionality’.⁣⁣

⁣⁣Curator | Bronwyn Lace
Production Manager | Shruthi Nair
Cinematography and Editing | Noah Cohen
Cinematography Intern | Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza
Photographer | Zivanai Matangi
Sound Designer & Engineer | Zain Vally
Assistance & Transportation | Boss Lekhoaba