Dhlakama Appointed ROM's New Curator of Global Africa
Tandazani Dhlakama (photo courtesy ROM)
Tandazani Dhlakama has been appointed as the Royal Ontario Museum’s new curator of Global Africa.
Born in Zimbabwe, Dhlakama has been working in Zimbabwe and South Africa for the past 15 years, focusing on art and artists from Africa and the African diaspora.
For the past seven years, she has been at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. She held a variety of roles there, including curator, assistant curator and education manager.
“We are delighted to welcome Tandazani Dhlakama – a curator with vast experience, a singular vision, and a truly international outlook – as she joins ROM in this important role,” said Josh Basseches, ROM’s director and CEO, in a news release.
“Here, she will deepen ROM’s engagement with African art and culture, so that the museum is even more representative of — and welcoming to — the many communities with African connections in Toronto and beyond.”
Her new role will include leading a collaborative approach to reinterpreting Canada’s largest collection of African art and culture, as well as developing displays and engaging with African communities in Toronto and beyond.
“I look forward to highlighting nuanced narratives connected to the vast African continent and its complex diaspora,” she said in the release.
“I am excited about the prospect of thinking with and working together with communities and colleagues here and abroad to amplify entangled histories, while emphasizing the issues of our time.”
Dhlakama holds a master of arts in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds in the U.K., and a bachelor of arts in Fine Art and Political Science from St. Lawrence University in the U.S.
Source: Royal Ontario Museum
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