WATCH: Abongile Sidzumo on Langa, leather and his Paris residency
JOHANNESBURG — Abongile Sidzumo has spent close to five years building a body of work from leather offcuts, thread and memory.
On a jolly sunny Saturday, September 12, 2026, he added a new door to that legacy at the 40 Doors Absa L’Atelier Art Legacy event at Nine Yards in Parktown North, Johannesburg.
NOWinSA caught up with Sidzumo as he worked on one of 40 doors commissioned for the celebration.
His brief was to answer, through leather and thread, what four decades of the Absa L’Atelier art competition has meant for artists like him.
“So what I’m doing here is an artwork for the celebration of 40 years of Absa L’Atelier, so we’ve been invited to make artworks onto doors,” Sidzumo told NOWinSA.
“My idea for this live art is to make art that speaks to the idea of home… what is home, and then also referencing my kind of like lived experiences and memories of growing up in the hostels of Langa.”
How Langa shaped Abongile Sidzumo’s leather art
That idea of home sits at the centre of Sidzumo’s work.
Born in Cape Town in 1996 and raised in Langa’s hostels, he has built his practice around experiences that are both personal and familiar to many South Africans.
His decision to work with leather also comes from those everyday experiences.
Speaking to NOWinSA’s Temoso Mokoena, who asked why he chose leather instead of paint or sculpture, Sidzumo traced the answer back to repairing clothes and shoes at home.
“I was kind of like influenced by the act of like repairing clothes or shoes… stitching things at home, you know, let’s say if school shoes are torn and need some repair, you stitch it,” he said.
“Maybe at home they don’t even have money to buy a new one, so you will repair it. So I kind of like took that skill of stitching and sewing and put it into my work.”
Sidzumo had studied sculpture and painting before moving towards leather. Cost was one of the reasons behind the change.
“Paint is also expensive, so I wanted to use an alternative kind of medium to work with that I can just pick up and make art out of it,” he said.
The result has become a distinctive practice in which leather, stitching and memories of Langa come together.
Abongile Sidzumo’s Absa L’Atelier journey to Paris
Sidzumo’s relationship with Absa began in October 2021, when he won the Gerard Sekoto Award, the L’Atelier prize reserved for South African artists.
The award earned him a three-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
A solo touring exhibition, Amagoduka, followed. It opened at the Absa Gallery in Johannesburg in 2023 before travelling to Gqeberha and Bloemfontein.
His journey now forms part of the wider story behind 40 years of Absa L’Atelier.
Established in 1986 with the South African National Association for the Visual Arts, Absa L’Atelier describes itself as the continent’s longest-running Pan-African art competition.
Its 2026 anniversary theme, “40 years of opening doors for African artists”, speaks directly to journeys such as Sidzumo’s.
Absa L’Atelier celebrates 40 years of opening doors
The anniversary programme extends beyond the 40 Doors event in Johannesburg.
It is touring Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, before moving into Ghana and Nigeria.
The Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle Fair at Mall of Africa will anchor the celebrations on October 10, 2026. This year’s top 12 finalists will showcase their work, with four new winners set to be announced live.
Masterclasses for artists, buyers and collectors will also take place in Lagos, Cape Town and Accra through November.
For Sidzumo, the anniversary provides another opportunity to reflect on how an art competition helped take his work from Langa to an international residency in Paris.
From Langa’s hostels to the international art scene
Sidzumo’s story also forms part of a wider movement of South African artists taking local stories to international audiences.
Zanele Muholi’s recent exhibition in Panama offers another example of South African art reaching audiences beyond the country’s borders.
Art lovers can see Sidzumo’s door installation and follow his journey from Langa’s hostels to the Absa L’Atelier platform at pop-up sites in Menlyn Park, Rosebank Mall and Mall of Africa through early October.
Sidzumo also shares his work on Instagram as @abongile_sidzumo.
