Mika Conradie
Mika Conradie (b. 1989, South Africa) is a researcher and curator preoccupied with plant-thinking, rhythmanalysis, ecology studies, decolonial spatial practice, the post-contemporary, and collective social infrastructures in Johannesburg. Her curated and co-curated projects include Or As With (2012, Johannesburg), Identikit (2012, Johannesburg and Harare), supplies (2012, Johannesburg), The Forecasters (2013, Gwangju), Listening Through the Image (2015, Johannesburg), and rhythmanalysis: from within, without and against (2017, Johannesburg). As founding co-director of POOL (an arts organization and curatorial platform founded with Amy Watson) she co-developed the long-term research project Ocean-Thinking that travelled to Madagascar in October 2016 with the support of Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, and that will continue in other key spaces across the Indian Ocean. As a writer she has written for Art South Africa, DiscussionLab, Transnational Dialogues, and has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues including Yinka Shonibares most recent solo exhibition at Gdansk City Gallery, Poland. Mika was a 2013 curatorial fellow at the Gwangju Biennale International Curators Course under Maria Lind, where she researched and presented the project The Forecasters with curators from Russia, Thailand, Italy, and the USA. She was a 2016 Curator-in-Residence at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw and is a member of Tropical Depression, a makeshift trans-continental collective that speculates on artistic mobility and infiltration within contemporary structures of capital, and that emerged, in part, through a shared awkward crush on Jakarta. Mika is the Manager for Public Programmes and Development at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, where she conceptualises and develops exhibitions and public programming across two exhibitions spaces.