Thania Petersen (b. 1980, Cape Town) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with the intertwined spiritual, cultural, and historical networks of the Afrasiatic Sea. Drawing on her creole Afro-Asian heritage and the embodied traditions of Sufi ritual, Petersen positions the ocean as a living archive—a site through which memory, migration, and belonging are continually reconstituted. Her work situates ancestral trajectories within the socio-political landscape of post-apartheid Cape Town, foregrounding the ocean as both a metaphor and material record of diasporic continuity. Collaboration forms the foundation of her methodology. Working with artisans, musicians, and Sufi choirs across Africa and Asia, Petersen explores processes of repair and re-connection, employing storytelling, craft, and performance as tools of decolonial practice. Through these exchanges, she reclaims cultural lineages fractured by empire and asserts art as a site of communal and spiritual restoration. Informed by sound ecology, Petersen’s performative and archival works trace the transoceanic migration of Sufi sonic traditions, framing sound as a vehicle for resistance, remembrance, and survival. Her practice interrogates the enduring structures of colonialism, apartheid, and Islamophobia, examining how these regimes continue to shape global imaginaries of faith, identity, and power. Through a language of ritual, sound, and embodied memory, Petersen proposes an alternative archive—one grounded in resilience, love, and the spiritual continuities that transcend imposed boundaries. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions both locally and abroad.
Exhibitions include Thania Petersen, Perth Festival, John Curtin Gallery, Perth (forthcoming, solo); The Amber of this Moment, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2025); ZAMUNDA FOREVER, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023, solo); Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest: 10 Years, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2023); 18th Venice Architecture Biennale (2023); Indigo Waves and other Stories, SAAVY Contemporary, Berlin (2023); Indigo Waves and other Stories, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2022–2023); Artists’ Film International (traveling), Whitechapel, London, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, and others (2022); Can We Sing Together, Old Friend?, 32 Bis, Tunis (2022, solo); Triennale Kleinplastic Fellbach: The Vibration of Things, Alte Kelter Fellbach, Fellbach (2022); Where Do I Begin, Stevenson, Cape Town (2022); KASSARAM, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2021, solo); Indian Ocean Craft Triennial: Curiosity and the Rituals of the Everyday, Fremantle, Australia (2021); Self-Addressed, curated by Kehinde Wiley, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2021); Un.e Air.e de Famille, Musée d’art et d’histoire Paul Eluard, Saint-Denis (2021); Between Land and a Raised Foot, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa (2019, solo); Radical Love, Ford Foundation, New York (2019); and IQRA, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town (2019, solo). Her work is collected by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), Cape Town; IZIKO South African Museum, Cape Town; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; and many others.
