Michael MacGarry is a multi-award-winning visual artist and filmmaker based in Johannesburg. His practice focuses on socio-political and economic narratives, particularly within the context of Africa, drawn through a post-humanist autobiographical mode. He holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand, is a fellow of the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) at the University of Cape Town and a recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010.

MacGarry’s political and poetic oeuvre is realised across a diverse range of media - including sculpture, photography, paper, installation and film. “I am increasingly drawn to the narrative capacity of objects – especially those repurposed from my immediate surroundings, that morph from utility to aesthetic, through processes of grafting imaginary and visible realities – as embodying compound ideas and multiple antecedents (both formally and conceptually) yet are not manifest. That is, in fact, resistant to overt communication. A process that dissects the works from both myself and the sum of their parts, forcing them – sometimes quite violently – to exist on their own terms, robbed of their former utility, and given new responsibilities.”

He has exhibited internationally at institutions including TATE Modern, Guggenheim Bilbao, Kiasma Museum and Zeitz MOCAA. He has published four monographs on his work. As a filmmaker, Michael has written and directed seven short films, having featured on more than 30 international film festivals and is a recipient of an El Ray Award - Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking (Barcelona Film Festival 2015), a finalist for the Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015 (Belgium) as well as Jury Awards from 19th VideoBrasil (Sao Paulo), K3 Internationales Film Festival (Austria) and 13th International Festival Signes de Nuit (Paris).