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Ncedeka MbuneSouth Africa
View objects by this artist.
Ncedeka Mbune was a mother from South Africa who worked as an Administrative Assistant in University of Cape Town’s Center for Social Science Research. It is likely that she was born in 1977 as she included a birth date of February 14th 1977 in her painting titled Body Maps. She is remembered for her gentle nature and warmth in her interactions. For a brief time, Mbune was a mother to a daughter who sadly passed away in 1999 due to the HIV she contracted. Exercising caution for her daughter’s health, prior to her birth, Mbune tested herself and received a false negative for HIV. As her daughter became more ill, Mbune found out that she had HIV herself.
Mbune’s painting is a part of a group of paintings created by 12 HIV-positive women from the Bambanani Women’s Group in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The series Body Maps was facilitated by MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and aimed to uplift the voices of HIV positive women. Through her painting, Mbune relived the brief cherished time with her child. In her artwork’s label, Mbune talks about her yearning for another child and also about how she is supposed to live for very long. It is heartbreaking that she passed away in 2015 and may have succumbed to the HIV virus. However, her love for her child is very much still alive within her painting.
Natalia Granquist ‘21
March 2021
Sources:
Ncedeka Mbune – Body Maps, 2009
The Constitutional Court Art Collection
In Memoriam: Ncedeka Mbune