CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
2021 University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
MAFA Masters in Fine Arts by Research and Practice (with distinction 92%)
Dissertation: ‘Ripples, Rhythms & Rapture: Sounding spiritual technologies as marronage’
Supervisor: Donna Kukama
2016 Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg South Africa
Intermediate Photography Course
2014 University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Honors in Social Anthropology (with distinction 84%)
Dissertation: ‘Rupture through Rapture: An ethnographic study of worship localities and
religious mobilities in Johannesburg’s inner city’
Supervisor: Prof. Francis Nyamnjoh
RESIDENCIES, WORKSHOPS & FELLOWSHIPS
2023 - 2025 Pressing Matter, National Museum of World Cultures & Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands
2024 Women Opera Makers w/ Katie Mitchell, Academie du Festival d’Aix. (3 - 7 March)
2024 Oscillations: Sonic Inquiries and Practices, The Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape & Akademie der Künste and Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Klangkust (February)
2023 Guest resident: Rijkakadmie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam, Netherlands (June — August)
2023 Think from Black: a Lexicon, Practising Refusal Collective & Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class -
Johannesburg, South Africa (26 - 28 January)
2022 TAKING CARE: Weltmuseum Wien - Vienna, Austria (June & July)
2022 Sound Art Lab - Struer, Denmark (February - May)
2018 Escuela Incierta: Oculturas (research residency), Lugar a Dudas, Santiago de Cali, Colombia (18 June - 31 July)
2015 Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television (EICTV), Cuba
Documentary Film Workshop with Enrique Colina
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 ‘Whatever You Throw at the Sea…”, solo exhibition, Weltmuseum Wien, Austria (25 April ‘23 - 2 April ‘24)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Unfinished Pasts, Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, The Netherlands (9 May ‘25 - 3 January ‘27)
2024 Pickup Notes, Liz Johnson Artur, Madiha Sikander & Zara Julius, Kunstinstituut Melly, The Netherlands (20 Sept ’24 - 27 April ‘25)
2024 Oscillations: Cape Town - Berlin, Sonic Inquiries and Practices group exhibition, Akademie der Künste - Berlin, Germany (27 April ’24 - 19 May ‘24)
2023 Scenorama eThekwini, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa (5 May ’23 - 4 June ‘24)
2022 Scenorama, curated by Gabi Ngcobo, Javett Art Centre, Pretoria, South Africa (April ’22 - March ‘23)
2022 SAL Project Space #2, Sound Art Lab, Struer, Denmark (15 June - 15 July)
2021 Tentacularity, Knotting and World-Making, group exhibition, POOL (20 October - 17 November)
2021 FAMILY MATTERS TRILOGY (documentary screenings), LAPA, Johannesburg, South Africa (2 October)
2021 Generation NOW, group exhibition, Galerie Eigenham, Weimar, Germany (16 June - 3 July)
2021 Goethe-Institut Kultursymposium Weimar, Family Matters: The Canelands, Germany (June)
2019 Photographer Unknown, group exhibition, FotoZA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (6 December 2018 - 31 January 2019
2018 Extraña Posesión, group exhibition, Lugar a Dudas, Santiago de Cali, Colombia (19 July)
2018 National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa (1 & 6 July)
2017 PEER, group exhibition, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (28 October–18 November)
2017 Red Bull Amaphiko Film Festival: ‘Film for Good’, Johannesburg, South Africa (28 October)
2017 THE LABS @ CHALE WOTE, Terra Alta, Accra, Ghana (17 August)
2017 Screening, “MIXED SPACE”, I/Mages of Tomorrow Conference: Envisioning black & POC futures, disabled futures, queer & trans futures, feminist futures, Centre for Feminist Research, Goldsmiths College, University of London, (3 June)
2017 Marked, group exhibition, Eclectica Print Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (4–26 May)
2017 Bilder de Zeitgeschehens: Images of Current Affairs, Press Photography and Archives in Africa, group exhibition, Basel University Library,Switzerland (28 April–27 August)
SELECTED PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
2024 Death is Part of the Process, radio art broadcast Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Germany
2023 CONTAINERS FOR GRIEF, Performative Screenings #82 - school, Vienna, Austria
2022 Frequencies of Care w/ Tina Campt & Zara Julius, Global Blackness Summer School ’22 / Black Geographies of Care, Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Sounding as Re/Membering, Loophole of Retreat, Simone Leigh Venice 2022, Fondazione Giorgio Cinni, Venice, Italy
2022 Smashing World(s) Festival: Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies, Zara Julius, Performance Lecture, Belvedere 21, Vienna, Austria
2021 UBUNTU: A Lucid Dream, The Library of the Things We Forgot To Remember, Johannesburg & Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2021 Tina Campt & Friends: Simone Leigh, Arthur Jafa, Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Danielle Bowler, Nomusa Makhubu & Zara Julius, Johannesburg, South Africa
CONFERENCE PAPERS, INVITED TALKS & LECTURES
2025 ‘What is the African Imaginary’ panelist w/ Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ashanti Kunene, & Remy Ngamije at Littlegig Literary Club, Cape Town, South Africa.
2025 ‘Building on the Past’ & ‘African Cosmologies as a World of Magnitude’, panelist, at Open Book Festival, Cape Town, South Africa.
2025 Death-worlds and Afterlives: Thinking with Death and The (Living) Dead, a 3-day workshop by Zara Julius, in partnership with Pressing Matter, NL & the Global Blackness project, Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg
2024 Pickup Notes on ‘Maroon Time’, Artist talk with Tina Campt, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, NL
2024 Panel, ‘A Fidai Film’, Cinema Solidarity Collective, Encounters 26th International Documentary Festival Johannesburg, South Africa
2024 Sonic Practice & Archive, Artist talk, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Archives in Stereo, Plenary Session lecture, PARSE Biennial Artistic Research Conference (Powers of Love: Enchantment to Disaffection), University of Gothenburg, Sweden
2023 Concepts for Sound (Art) Research, Panelist, ÆSR Lab (Applied/Experimental Sound Research Lab) Launch Symposium, Angewandte, Vienna, Austria
2023 A Funeral for..., Zara Julius & Zoe Samudzi, Pressing Matter Repair Lab, de Appel, Amsterdam, NL 2023 Zara Julius, Performance Lecture, ‘Archiving Otherwise: Sound Thinking and Sonic Practice’, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Zara Julius, Performance Lecture, To Where Are We Beautifully Going? Vol. IV, Skånes Konstförening, Malmö, Sweden (15 October)
2022 Zara Julius in conversation w/ Vuyiswa Xekatwane, Traversing Waters: a listening session, Javett-UP Art Centre, Pretoria (18 Sept)
2022 Zara Julius & Samira Farah, When art meets music: Reflections on Black Archiving Zoom discussion,
Arts House Melbourne, Australia (20 July)
2022 Zara Julius, Panelist, BREATHE! Erasmus+ Project: The Return of Cultural Property, Kulturhaus Brotfabrik, Austria (8 July)
2022 Zara Julius, Performance Lecture, Smashing World(s) Festival: Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies ,
Belvedere 21, Vienna (3 July)
2022 Zara Julius, Artist Talk, WeltMuseum Wien, Austria (14 June)
2022 Zara Julius, Guest Lecture, ‘Archives & Refusal’, Cultural Transformations seminar, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University,
Denmark (29 April)
2021 Tina Campt & Friends, Centre for Race Gender & Class, University of Johannesburg, South Africa (29 October)
2021 Tumi Mogorosi & Zara Julius, DeAesthetic: Constructions of the Black, Javett Art Centre, Pretoria (16 October)
2021 Zara Julius & Tina Campt, A BLACK GAZE, Immersive listening & collective reading, Remote Reading Room,
Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (2nd September)
2020 Zara Julius, Virtual Guest Lecture, “Archives & Fugitivity”, University of the Underground, Holland [Online]. (27 November)
2020 Panelist, “FREQUENCIES OF BLACKNESS - A listening session w/ Tina Campt, Zara Julius, Jenn Nkiru & Alexander Weheliye”, The Sojourner Project Black Studies Mobile Academy & the Practicing Refusal Collective (PR Collective)[Online], Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD), University of Johannesburg (UJ); The Black Visualities Initiative at Brown University, & the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, Yale University. (20 November)
2020 Zara Julius, Digital Performance Lecture, “Spiritual Technologies & Sonic Tidalectics”, Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival [Online]. (18 & 19 November)
2020 Panelist, “Archives and the Frequency of Fugitivity” at “”Sonic As Cultural Resistance”, Reframing Africa 2020, [Online] Wits School of Arts, Wits History Workshop, Market Photo Workshop, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA and Carleton University, Canada,(24 - 25 October)
2020 “Rapture as Marronage: sonic vignettes and south-south technological interventions” at "Dialogues with Dust: Quarantine
Marathon”, Graduate School of Architecture (unit 18 & unit 13), University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, 2 April 2020
2019 “PROCLAMATION 73: Curating Beyond the Timeline”, Dept. of History of Art, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, (12 April)
2019 In Conversation: Sam Nhlengethwa’s personal vinyl collection with Zara Julius, Book Week, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 4 April 2019
2018 Zara Julius, Panelist, “Archiving an Illegitimate Aristocracy” at “Re-Reading the Portrait”, Black Portraiture[s] IV: The Colour of Silence, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 23-25 March 2018
2017 Zara Julius, Panelist, “The Future of Filmmaking”, Red Bull Amaphiko Film Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa, 29 October 2017
2017 Zara Julius, Panelist, “Women and post-apartheid film”, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, Cape Town, 4-5 August 2017
2017 Zara Julius, Panelist, “Against a Mixed Race Future”, I/Mages of Tomorrow Conference: Envisioning black & POC futures, disabled futures, queer & trans futures, feminist futures, Centre for Feminist Research, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 3 June 2017
2017 Zara Julius, Guest Lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology, Sol Plaatje University, “Race, Religion and Reggaeton: Representations of syncretic religions, music and blackness in the Caribbean”, 8 – 12 May 2017
2017 Zara Julius, Panelist, “Mixed Roots Stories: ‘Visual Culture: Mixed Bodies/ Mixed Spaces“, Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference: Explorations in Trans (gender, gressions, migrations, racial), University of Southern California, 24 February 2017
2015 Zara Julius, Artist Talk, “Enraptured Imaginaries: Religious mobilities and moralities in downtown Johannesburg”, David Krut Bookstore, Johannesburg, November 2015
SOCIAL PRACTICE & RESEARCH PROJECTS
2017 - ongoing KONJO & Talking Drum podcast
2019 RAPTURE INSTITUTE, The Point of Order, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa (1 - 20 October 2019)
2018 PROCLAMATION 73, circular gallery, Durban Art Gallery, Durban, South Africa (10 December 2018 – 15 February 2019)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2023 “Quiet Conversations: Machete” with Z. Julius, C. Mejía Moreno & H. Tayob, Architectures of the South, Elipses Journal [Issue 4],
The Wits Schools of the Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (March 2023)
2022 “A Reflection: Listening as Re/membering”, Z. Julius, Landwalks Across Palestine and South Africa,
The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit & University of Cape Town School of Architecture (November 2022)
2021 “A Call for Renewed Internationalism: A sonic liberation front”, Z. Julius, HERRI, Issue #5 (June 2021)
2021 "Enraptured Breath: The sonic spirit of Azania", Z. Julius, Indaba Is Fanzine, Brownswood Recordings (March 2021)
2020 “(Whose) Vinyl in (Which) Africa? A Zoom Fiasco", Z. Julius, HERRI Issue #4 (7 August 2020)
2016 Julius, Z. (2016). On photography in social movements. In: Pathways to Free Education. Vol. 2. 1st ed. [ebook]. 24-25.
2016 #theopening Catalogue, Greatmore Studios, Cape Town
AWARDS
2020 Pro Helvetia Breathing Space project grant
2019 Art Research Africa A W Mellon Postgraduate Bursary award
2018 Goethe Institut Project Space (GPS) 2018 project grant
2015 De Villiers Scholarship award
2014 A W Mellon Fellowship
2014 National Research Foundation of South Africa postgraduate scholarship
2013 Deans merit list, University of Cape Town
2011 Entrance bursary award, University of Cape Town
2010 Fujifilm Southern Africa Photographic Awards, 1st prize
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2022 Goethe Project Space, grant jury (October)
2022 Gallo Vault Sessions: a podcast collaboration with Gallo Music & KONJO, writer, producer & researcher
2021 Lecturer - 2nd year Fine Art, Performativity & Sonic Practices (Listening to The Archive, Sounding the Repertoire),
Wits School of Fine Art, Johannesburg (April - July)
2021 Theatre playlisting - National Arts Festival
Another Kind of Dying (Dir. Amy Wilson)
2021 Content producer, script development & back-stage host,
Bassline I AM HOME SABC Africa Day Special Broadcast
2020 Corporate Research Consultant Time Study & Systems Transition Study,
Capitec & Mercantile Bank (November & December)
Mercantile Bank, Johannesburg
2019 Goethe Project Space, grant jury (October)
2017 Videographer, Editor (December)
‘SINKING’ film by Lhola Amira (SMAC Gallery)
2017 External examiner, Unit 10 Graduate School of Architecture University of Johannesburg
Museum of African Design, Johannesburg (October)
2016 Co-Director, Executive Producer, Co-Writer, Editor (November – January)
‘Optimus Usimende’ film by Francois Knoetze
2014 Tutor, AXL1400F, ‘Words, Deeds, Bones and Things’, Dr. Divine Fu. Dept. of
Anthropology, University of Cape Town
2014 Video art & art talks programme curator & coordinator, Cape Town Art Fair
ongoing Freelance arts & culture writer
publications include: IAM Africa | Cape Town Art Fair Gazette, Mail & Guardian, OkayAfrica, HERRI