For The Art Momentum, Tyna Adebowale delves into the foundations of her artistic journey and the ideas that shape her evolving body of work, with a special focus on her presentation in the SOLO section of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2026. Titled #Chapter14. Mothers of Resistance | #ThereIsAlwaysaMother, the work resonates powerfully with the section’s theme, Echoes of Humanity. Through it, Adebowale reflects on the enduring role of maternal figures as carriers of memory, strength, and intergenerational defiance. She reminds us that resistance often begins in the intimate spaces of nurture, and that behind every struggle, there is always a mother.
A sound piece created especially for the fair by the artist is available at the end of this interview.
Your work often challenges traditional gender norms and reimagines matriarchal structures. How do these ideas serve as ”echoes” of human experience, and how do you hope they resonate with audiences in terms of listening to histories of women and community-building?
RESISTANCE….In this practice, resistance is not an event but a condition, held in bodies, gestures, and shared responsibilities, and in what is carried forward, repaired, and protected over time. It operates as an ethics of care that sustains life and memory against forces that seek to fragment or erase them.
I grew up in a village of very busy and productive women who carried out the essential work that sustained the family and the rest of the community. They were, and remain, the life force of the places I come from. Much of my work begins by paying close attention to how these women have always organised life. Very quietly, often without recognition, and without complaint.
When I think about reimagining matriarchal structures, whether displaced or obscured by increasingly chaotic patriarchal systems, I am not thinking about claiming power as dominance. I am thinking about care, listening, and shared responsibility. Women around me have always held power not as spectacle, but as a quiet, embodied force. A way of being that does not require declaration. Today, this power appears as echoes, not because it belongs to the past, but because it continues to move through us, in care cultures, in gestures of living, and in relational ways of being, despite erasures.
With this new chapter, I hope audiences feel invited to slow down and listen. The work is not something to decode, but something to sit with. It asks for attentiveness to how community is built through shared vulnerability and practices that prioritise actions over hierarchy, both within the work and in the histories that surround us, particularly those carried by women and communities during moments of crisis. If the work opens space for reflection, conversation, or a sense of collective memory, then it is doing what I hope it can do.
In #Chapter14. Mothers of Resistance | #ThereIsAlwaysaMother, which you will present at the next edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, motherhood is approached as an intergenerational space of care, memory, and resistance, carried in bodies, gestures, and silences. How do you listen to these maternal histories, both named and unnamed, in your creative process, and how do you hope viewers in Cape Town will encounter and carry forward these echoes of care, continuity, and resistance through your work?
With #Chapter14. Mothers of Resistance | #ThereIsAlwaysaMother, I think of the motherwomb as an accumulation of memory, held in bodies and in everyday acts of endurance and care. This care is often passed down silently, through gesture, presence, and daily intentional actions.
The work gives space to non-biological mothers, to gogos and aunties whose labour and knowledge were deeply felt. In times of crisis, women often step forward, regardless of how they are related. Presenting this work in Cape Town feels significant, as it is a place where histories of care and resistance are deeply lived.
Rather than offering closure, the work invites continuation. It asks viewers to recognise how care moves across generations, how resistance can be quiet and sustained, and how motherhood, biological or otherwise, functions as an archive of collective protection. I hope viewers do not only observe the work, but that we all can recognise parts of ourselves within it, and carry those echoes forward as something ongoing, long after the exhibition.
Your multidisciplinary practice spans painting, video, performance, and installation. How do the materials and mediums you work with enable you to listen to and amplify human experiences, and in what ways do they help communicate the resonances of identity, memory, and transformation?
Materials are never neutral in my practice. They are not simply just tools, but active participants and collaborators that I use in amplifying experiences that resist singular narratives. For me, moving between mediums reflects how identity and memory operate, whether layered, fragmented, and or constantly shifting. This flexibility allows me to communicate transformation not as a fixed moment, but as an ongoing process shaped by freedom and openness to what emerges.
Sound Piece: There Is Always A Mother (2026) – Courtesy Tyna Adebowale.
Tyna Adebowale is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects.