Vela Projects is proud to present We Should All Be Dead, Khanya Zibaya’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Through the multimedia works that form part of this exhibition, conceptual artist Zibaya offers a compelling intervention against a world saturated by infrastructure decay, spiritual alienation, the high cost of living, racial terror, and persistent ecological degradation.

In response to the multiple crises facing South Africa’s urban life—where terms such as “polycrisis” have emerged to account for how events such as climate degradation accelerate loss of life and translate into socio-economic instability—Zibaya’s work engages deeply with these urgent realities.

Zibaya’s timely exhibition, which includes black-and-white conceptual photography, collage-making, and abstract painting, captures the often forgotten, ignored, and mundane aspects of city life, while exploring what defiant beauty might look like.

The exhibition title is particularly striking, recognizing “failure” as attributed to the political processes of racial slavery and colonialism, where the intended objective was to erase those who were deemed non-human and therefore inferior. Yet, within these histories, resilience has emerged. The title calls for a pause—not only to take note of survival that has lived side by side with the histories of modernity, but also to reflect. In this exhibition, one of the critical outcomes of such a moment of pause is the recognition that “the price of being human is too high,” as Zibaya argues.

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