| Athi-Patra Ruga is a hastily ascending young South African artist whose work comfortably straddles the divides between fashion, performance, and photography. Dressed in a dizzying array of costumes, most notably his “Injibhabha outfit” (one Ruga himself has been known to call his “Afro Womble” attire), Ruga inserts himself, or rather the characters he is playing, into challenging situations. Ruga’s interest in fashion stems from a complex understanding of the body and the politics its dressing reveals. He speaks about body proportions and gender-based preconceptions informing clothing, which in turn render the body rather than simply covering it. |  |
Whatiftheworld
Above all I believe that the work developed out of a need to illustrate arguments about the body in the context of the post-industrial (even post-urban). By utilizing the medium of fashion I wanted to explore disembodiment with regards to the result of one not being aware of how things are made… in the form of craftwork as it is process-based—this requires discipline—and the body plays a big part in realizing this discipline… A form of disembodiment befalls one’s senses when they don’t pay attention to the process of things, how things are done. One eats sushi without the full grasp of the process (of preparing it); people rob people without knowledge of how things are acquired… I feel that making, and being conscious of making is a discipline.—Athi-Patra Ruga
Athi-Patra Ruga is a hastily ascending young South African artist whose work comfortably straddles the divides between fashion, performance, and photography. Dressed in a dizzying array of costumes, most notably his “Injibhabha outfit” (one Ruga himself has been known to call his “Afro Womble” attire), Ruga inserts himself, or rather the characters he is playing, into challenging situations. Ruga’s interest in fashion stems from a complex understanding of the body and the politics its dressing reveals. He speaks about body proportions and gender-based preconceptions informing clothing, which in turn render the body rather than simply covering it. His shift into performance has seen him importing this concept of clothing into energized situations, informed by a razor-sharp sense of time and place. His sojourn through Switzerland in his Injibhabha costume was calculated to draw comparisons with a controversial poster by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which depicted a black sheep being booted off the Swiss flag by three white sheep. Spotting a key opportunity to critique European xenophobia, Ruga appeared in the sanitized urban landscape of Berne in his aberrant attire for a series of performances collectively titled Even I Exist in Embo: Jaundiced Tales of Counterpenetration.
