With a taste for the tensions between risk and play, ego and alter, presentation and perception, curator Jana ‘Babez’ Terblanche situates her practice around collaboration, hybridity and capsizing the status quo. Beginning her career in the world of performance art, Jana has most recently joined the team at storied gallery Southern Guild as Head of Development. Jana has never been one to conform.
Embracing the idea that we are endlessly multifaceted, she explains, ‘You don’t have to choose one role. You can be interdisciplinary. I think that is what young people are allowed to do nowadays - you don’t have to be rigid.’ From her identity to her artistic practice and curatorial position, Jana’s rejection of prescribed roles is apparent across the spectrum. ‘One day, I can be the pink Barbie, and the next, the curator in a black polo neck - anything goes.’ As someone who loves a persona, Jana has assumed in her work a variety of characters, each of whom questions what society deems acceptable for women and femme bodies. These recurring ideas flow easily into her curatorship, where body politics and the potentiality of presentation are integral. However, one of the biggest differences between her dual professions is her positionality. ‘My curatorial practice is not about me. I don’t have an agenda. Curating allows me to step back and let another story take over, and I love that about it.’
As custodian of her collaborators’ creative output, and by refuting past practices of controlling the narrative, Jana centres her curatorial work around putting the artist first, ‘I am trying to amplify the conversation between artist, curator and collector,’ she says. ‘it is a beautiful community.’ Describing her experience of the contemporary art world, she emphasises an optimism around the emerging discourse among artists across the continent, and the possibility for growth that it invites. ‘The local art market is still in its infancy. I say that as a positive because we can create a more constructive environment. We are deviating from the way things were done in the past.’
Jana is currently co-curating a group exhibition titled Shout Plenty at the African Artists’ Foundation in Nigeria, exploring how artists respond to the concept of social justice. ‘Sharing stories about where we transgress, our hopes and aspirations can generate dialogue that can affect social change.’ She is also working on various personal and collaborative projects. ‘Truth comes out of spaces of risk and play. That is what is exciting me now.’
Production: Piet Smedy, Text: Gracie Winkler, Photographs: Greg Cox
