ANNA Award Winner Announced

WORDS Michaela Stehr

Latitudes Online and ANNA Pure Organics have created a new award, celebrating, discovering and recognising a fresh generation of South African female artists and have chosen a 2022 winner.

The team are proud to announce the winner chosen from 12 finalists. Lerato Nkosi is the winner of an R100 000 cash prize, a residency at PLAAS in Franschhoek, a feature on the Latitudes website and a year of ANNA products.

The winner was chosen from among the 12 finalists by the ANNA selection committee:

• Makgati Molebatsi – Arts advisor, Curator and Senior Art Specialist, Aspire Art Auctions
• Refiloe Mpakanyane – Weekend breakfast host, 702
• Candice Chirwa – menstruation activist, speaker, and academic
• Marianne Fassler – Fashion Designer, Leopard Frock 
• Jo-Ann Strauss – South African model, public speaker and businesswoman
• Nina Carew – Curator, Latitudes

Finalist Sinalo Ngcaba is the winner of the Audience Award, for which Latitudes received 2767 votes from the public. 

Lerato Nkosi lives and works in Joburg and her art examines the intricacies of womanhood, created in the medium of ink and stamps, resulting in multi-faceted pieces. Her winning work explores the notion of support, often given by women, and their influential guidance. Lerato’s reflection on this theme can be explained by her own life experience: growing up in the Mpumalanga village of Swalala, she was raised by her mother and grandmother – both strong, single women. “My father passed away when I was one year old, and my mother had to raise me and my siblings alone. In some ways, history was repeating itself – my grandfather had to leave my grandmother to earn money. He became a bus driver in Johannesburg, while she remained in Swalala to look after their eight children – all of whom have become successful in their own right.” 

Lerato believes like this – and like the recently launched ANNA Award – are crucial platforms. “It’s vital that we create these opportunities for women artists. Our voices need to be heard,” she insists, pointing to the evolution of women as an object of the Gaze, as during the Renaissance, to today’s compelling creators. 

Read more about the awards and the finalists, here.

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