Publications
Books & Book Chapters | Journal Articles | Other Essays & Reviews
Publication Highlights
In 2022 I published the co-edited book, Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression, with Juliette Leeb-du Toit and Ross Anthony (Wits University Press).
“This is perhaps the most important contribution to the growing body of China–Africa literature of the decade...it is breathtaking in its ambition and scope” (Yoon Jung Park)
“This pathbreaking publication draws together, for the first time, works by authors who analyse the encounter between Chinese and Africans through the lens of visual arts and material culture. Led by the leading scholars of artistic representation in China–Africa engagement, the contributors make visible the circulations and connections between material objects, identity, and culture in the expanding relationship between Chinese and Africans” (Jamie Monson)
“A fascinating and important collection. More than an expansion of the dominant economic/geopolitical framing of the Africa–China relationship, it is an intervention in that framing, and a crucial one” (Cobus van Staden)
In 2016 I was invited to form the first Africa-based editorial board as part of the MIT Press consortium for African Arts. I initially worked with guest co-editors and then formed a board in collaboration with Stephen Folaranmi, Angelo Kakande, Rachel Baasch and Emi Koide. Our goal was to increase the number of authors based on the African continent, and I ran a series of publishing workshops that assisted scholars with the publishing process. (See Teaching & Training) In 2021 I co-edited a special issue on blaxTARLINES collective in Ghana with Kwaku Boafo Kissiedu.
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Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. (Eds). 2025 (In press). Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (In press). “Queen Elizabeth II’s ‘Commonstealthiness’: Radical Rudeness and Trickster Moves in Eria ‘SANE’ Nsubuga’s Exhibition, The Baganda.” In Image of the European in African Art edited by Henry L. Gates, Suzanne Blier and David Bindman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (forthcoming). “Revolutionary Friendship, Post-Revolutionary Alliance: The ‘Messiness’ of Zambia-China Comradeship (Zhanyou) in Visual Portrayals of the TAZARA Railway” in AfricAsia edited by Lizzie Stein and Karen Milbourne. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute.
Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch and Athina Vahla. 2025 (in press). “Crash Collaborative Encounters and the Birth of the Arts Lounge” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (in press). “Unsettling the Place of Blood” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (in press). “A Trickster Meeting at Dividing Points: Maurice Mbikayi’s Intersections” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (in press). “A cosmolocal walk with Labadi: Serge Attukwei Clottey and GoLokal” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth and Olusegun Titus. 2025 (in press), “Youchaou Kiffouly’s 7th Continent: site-situational performance at Ussher Fort, Ghana” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Viwe Madinda, Rachel Misiwe Madinda and Ruth Simbao. 2025 (in press). “Kwathi Kaloku Ngantsomi” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Ruth Simbao in dialogue with William B. Miko, Eyitayo Tolulope Ijisakin, Romuald Tchibozo, Masimba Hwati, Kristin NG-Yang, Patrick Mudekereza, Aidah Nalubowa, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Lee-Roy Jason, Eman Abdou, Rehema Chachage, Amanda Tumusiime, Suzana Sousa, and Fadzai Muchemwa, 2005 (in press). “Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways: The Orientation of the Arts of Africa Discourse” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth, Stephen Fọlárànmí and Rachel Baasch. 2005 (in press). Converge: A Geometry of Collaboration. 2025 (in press) in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth and Stary Mwaba. 2025 (in press). “Small Stories, Sideways Curating: A Collaborative Exhibition Experience on the Zambian Copperbelt” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (in press). “Relishing in the Refusal of Sight, Viewing Failure as Delight: Athi-Patra Ruga’s Performance obscura/Future white woman of Azania” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2025 (in press). “Landing in the soup: gastropolitical consumption and resource extraction in Bright Tetteh Ackwerh’s exhibition, Where de cho dey?” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth, Shana Ellappa and Kresiah Mukwazi. 2025 (in press). “Visual Activism and Collective Acts of Care: Kresiah Mukwazhi’s Healing Protest” in Audacious Art Histories: Grounding the Arts of Africa. Edited by Simbao, Ruth, Rachel Baasch Stephen Folárànmí. Under contract with Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2024 (in press). “Malema Mirrors Mao, Fanon Faces Dao: Reimagining Afro-Asian Solidarities Through the Activation of Revolutionary Portraits.” In Entangled Histories and Ambivalent Feelings: Connecting China and the Global South through Literature, Film and Digital Media, edited by Hongwei Bao and Daniel Mutibwa. London and New York: Routledge.
Simbao, Ruth. 2024. “Radical Intimacies: Anti-Monumental Storytelling in the Art of Gladys Kalichini”, in Voicing Out Silences edited by Esquivel, Iztel, Anawana Haloba and Gala Berger. Norway: Office for Contemporary Art Norway and ASSATA Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2024. “Moving Graves, Rousing Spirits: Shades of Heritage and Creative Resistance at the Chinese TAZARA Memorial Park in Zambia.” In Africa-Asia: Multifaceted Engagement in the Contemporary World, edited by Fendler, Ute and Yongkyu Chang. Gateway East, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan and Springer Nature (Pages 163-202).
Tello, Veronica with Dylan AT Miner, Zoe Butt, Edgar Hernandes, Rolando Lopez, Carla Macchiavello, Walter D. Mignolo, Rachel O’Reilly and Ruth Simbao. 2023. Future Souths: Dialogues on Art, Place and History. London and Melbourne/Naarm: Third Text Publications and Discipline. ISBN: 9780994538863
Simbao, Ruth. 2023. “Global Art: Stepping Nimbly with Strategic Southernness” in Future Souths: Dialogues on Art, Place and History by Tello, Veronica with Dylan AT Miner, Zoe Butt, Edgar Hernandes, Rolando Lopez, Carla Macchiavello, Walter D. Mignolo, Rachel O’Reilly and Ruth Simbao. London and Melbourne/Naarm: Third Text Publications and Discipline. ISBN: 9780994538863. This essay is followed by a dialogue with Veronica Tello, Jean-Sylvain Mukendi and Walter Mignolo.
Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ross Anthony and Ruth Simbao (Eds). 2022. Visualising, China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press (364 pages).
Anthony, Ross, Ruth Simbao and Juliette Leeb-du Toit. 2022. “Geopolitics by Other Means: Navigating the Chinese Presence in Southern Africa Through Art” in Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press (pages 1-25).
2022. “A Letter to My Cousin in China: Migrancy and Dilemmas of Burial”. In Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ruth Simbao and Ross Anthony. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press (pages 38-58).
Simbao, Ruth and Stary Mwaba. 2022. “‘Abapakati: Chinese Intermediaries and Artisanal Mining on the Zambian Copperbelt”. In Leeb-du Toit, Juliette, Ruth Simbao and Ross Anthony. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression. Johannesburg: Wits University Press (pages 84-112).
Simbao, Ruth. 2022. “Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa: Creating our art histories on the ground where we stand (La géopolitique et les arts d’Afrique: créer nos histoires de l’art sur le sol où nous sommes)” in On Art History in Africa / De l’histoire de l’art en Afrique. Kouoh, K, Nzewi, U. C., Barois De Caevel, E., & Ebbesen, M. H (eds). Switzerland: RAW Material Company; Motto Books.
Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “Walking into Africa in a Chinese Way: Hua Jiming’s Mindful Entry” in Afrique/Asie: réseaux, échanges, transversalités edited by Dominique Malaquais and Nicole Khouri. Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Cleansing via the Senses as Eyesight Follows the Soul: Igshaan Adams’ Bismillah Performance”. In Igshaan Adams, edited by Christine Cronje, Jonathan Garham and Hannah Lewis. ISBN: 9780620662598. Cape Town: Blank Projects (pages 117-131).
Simbao, Ruth. 2012. Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China. Grahamstown [Makhanda]: Visual and Performing Arts of Africa. ISBN:
Simbao, Ruth. 2012. (translated into Portuguese). “O afropolitismo cosmolocal: novas geografias na arte contemporânea Africana”. In Granḏes Liçoes edited by Clara Riso. Lisbon: The Gulbenkian Institute and Tinta da China, pp167-205. ISBN: 978-989-671-171-9, pp167-205.
Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Nandipha Mntambo’s Pause” in Nandipha Mntambo. Standard Bank Young Artist Award catalogue essay. Stevenson Galleries, pp9-23. ISBN: 978-0-620-50664-9.
Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Self-Identification as Resistance: Visual Constructions of “Africanness” and “Blackness” during Apartheid” in Pissarra, M. (ed.). Visual Century: South African Art in Context, 1907-2007. (Vol 3). Johannesburg: Wits University Press, pp 38-59.
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “The Thirtieth Anniversary of June 16: Reading the Shadow in Sam Nzima’s Iconic Photograph of Hector Pieterson” in Hlongwane, Ali Khangela (eds.). Footprints of the "Class of 76": Commemoration, Memory, Mapping and Heritage. Soweto: The Hector Pieterson Museum, 2009, pp 131-176. ISBN: 978-0-620-41917-8.
Simbao, Ruth. 2008. “A Fish Out of Water: The Inland Migration of the Dona Fish to the Luapula Plateau, Zambia” in Drewal, Henry J. (ed.). Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and Other Divinities in Africa and the Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 156-169. ISBN: 978-0-253-35156-2.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “I Ka Nyé Tan: You Look Beautiful Like That” in Elizabeth Harney (ed.). Flava: Wedge Curatorial Projects (1997-2007). Toronto: Wedge Curatorial Projects, pp 16-23. ISBN: 978-0-9783370-0-1.
Simbao [Kerkham], Ruth. 2001. “Panya Clark Espinal's Inscrutable Visitor” in Panya Clark Espinal curated by Marnie Flemming. Etobicoke: Oakville Galleries, Canada.
Simbao, Ruth. 1998. “Remember, Re-member: The role of memory in South African Art” in Nzegwu, Nkiru (ed.). Issues in Contemporary African Art. Binghamton: The International Society for Studies in Africa, 1998, pp 155-171.
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Simbao, Ruth. 2024. “A Trickster Also Known as ‘Jozi’”, Safundi. 1–7.
Simbao, Ruth. 2023. “From the Dilemma of Chinese Nation Branding and Soft Power to the Performativity of Creative Power: The TAZARA Memorial Park and Artistic Intervention in Zambia,” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 10(3): 267-295.
Simbao, Ruth and Kissiedu, Kwaku Boafo. 2021. “Quiet Revolution in Arts Education: The Rise of blaxTARLINES Kumasi,” African Arts, 54(2): 1-5.
Baasch, Rachel, Stephen Folárànmí, Emi Koide, Angelo Kakande, Ruth Simbao. 2021. “Knowing with: New Rhodes Board Navigates Collaboration, Intimacy and Solidarity”. African Arts 53(2): 1-5.
Simbao, Ruth. 2019. 越万隆的侧面接触 当代视觉艺术中的无畏团结与偶然的“中非”剧. (“Reaching Sideways Beyond Bandung: Audacious Solidarities and Contingent ‘China-Africa’ Scripts in Contemporary Visual Art”). Renjian Thought Review (Taiwan issue). 10: 14-51
Simbao, Ruth, Koyo Kouoh, Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Suzana Sousa and Emi Koide. 2019.
“Condition Report 3: Art History in Africa: Debating Localization, Legitimization and New Solidarities” African Arts 52(2): 10-17. Article selected for the MIT Press special compilation on anti-racism and social justice, “Articles for Understanding: Systemic Racism” in 2020.
Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “Pushing against ‘China-Africa’ slowly, and with small stories”. Something We Africans Got 7: 228-233.
Simbao, Ruth, Raphael Chikukwa, Jimmy Ogonga, Berry Bickle, Marie Helene Pereira, Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Mhoze Chikowero and N’Gone Fall. 2018. “Zimbabwe Mobilizes: ICAC’s Shift from Coup de Grace to Cultural Coup”. African Arts 51(2): 4-17 (in press). Article selected for the MIT Press special compilation on anti-racism and social justice, “Articles for Understanding: Systemic Racism” in 2020.
Simbao, Ruth. 2018. “Cosmolocal Orientations: Trickster Spatialization and the Politics of Cultural Bargaining in Zambia”, Critical Interventions 12(3):251-274.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “Situating Africa: An Alter-Geopolitics of Knowledge, or Chapungu Rises”. African Arts 50(2), pp1-9. Article selected for the MIT Press special compilation on anti-racism and social justice, “Articles for Understanding: Systemic Racism” in 2020.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways: The Orientation of the Arts of Africa Discourse”. African Arts 50(2), pp 10-29. (A dialogue with 14 co-authors).
Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “Infecting the City: Site-situational Performance and Ambulatory Hermeneutics”.Third Text 30 (1-2), p. 1-26.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Blind Spots: Trickery and the ‘Opaque Stickiness’ of Seeing”, Image and Text 25: 5-21. ISSN 1020 1497.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “What ‘Global Art’ and Current (Re)Turns Fail to See: A Modest Counter-Narrative of ‘Not-Another-Biennial’”, Image and Text 25: 239-263. ISSN 1020 1497
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Cosmological Efficacy and the Politics of Sacred Place: Soli Rainmaking in Contemporary Zambia”. African Arts. 2014. Cambridge, Massachusetts and Los Angeles: MIT Press and UCLA, pp 40-57.
Simbao, Ruth and Nomusa Makhubu. 2013. “The Art of Change: Perspectives on Transformation in South Africa”, Third Text 27(3): 299-302.
Simbao, Ruth. 2013. “Walking the Other Side: Doung Anwar Jahangeer”, Third Text 27(3): 407-414.
Simbao, Ruth. 2012. “China-Africa Relations: Research Approaches”. African Arts, Spring 2012, pp 1-7. (MIT Press).
Simbao, Ruth. 2011. "The Proximity of Distance: A Topographic Diary of Sino-African Dialectics", JACANA: Journal of African Culture and New Approaches 1, 8-21. ISSN 2157-1910.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. “Dialectics of Dance and Dress: The Performative Negotiation of Soli Girl Initiates (Moye) in Zambia” in African Arts, 2010. Cambridge, Massachusetts and Los Angeles: MIT Press and UCLA.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. “A Deadly Explosive on her Tongue: White Artists/Black Bodies,” Third Text Africa 2(3): 45-60. (Article republished in Third Text Africa, original in Third Text 2000).
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “(Im)moral Distance: Don’t Blink”. Art South Africa 2009, 8(2): 8
Simbao, Ruth. 2008. “‘Afri thing is not what is seems” in Art South Africa 7(1), Spring 2008, 58-63.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “Credo Mutwa: Time Unraveller” in Art South Africa 5 (4), Winter 2007, 42-45. (Special edition on Afro-Futurism).
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “The Thirtieth Anniversary of June 16: Reading the Shadow in Sam Nzima’s Iconic Photograph of Hector Pieterson,” African Arts 40 (2), Summer 2007. Cambridge, Massachusetts and Los Angeles: MIT Press and UCLA, 52-69. Article selected for MIT Press 50th anniversary “50 most influential articles”.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “Speaking in Tongues,” Art South Africa 5 (3), Autumn 2007, 62-65. (An article on the performance art of Zambian artist Anawana Haloba).
Simbao, Ruth. 2006. “A Crown on the Move: Stylistic Integration of the Luba-Lunda complex in Lunda-Kazembe Performance,” African Arts 39 (3), Autumn 2006, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Los Angeles: MIT Press and UCLA, 26-41 and 93-96.
Simbao, Ruth. 2006. “Weighing Masculinity,” Art South Africa 5 (2) Summer 2006, 38-39.
Simbao, Ruth. 2004. “Dancing the line as we wave the old year goodbye,” Art South Africa 2 (3), Autumn 2004, 18-21.
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “A Deadly Explosive on her Tongue: White Artists/Black Bodies,” Third Text 50, Spring 2000, London: Routledge, 45-60.
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “There’s a Bomb in this Exhibition: Kendell Geers Charged,” Parachute: Revue d’Art Contemporain/Contemporary Art 99, July – September 2000, pp 30-40. Montreal, Canada.
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Simbao, Ruth. 2021. “David Nthubu Koloane (1938-2019),” African Arts, 53(2): 6-9. Obituary and discussion of Koloane’s artwork.
Simbao, Ruth. 2019. Translated into French, “A rebours de la « Chine-Afrique », à pas lents, et avec de petits récits”. French version of “Pushing against ‘China-Africa’ slowly, and with small stories”, Vernaculaire & Adventice online, translated by Myriam Dao.
Simbao, Ruth. 2019. “David Koloane fought for the right to define himself – and his art”, Conversation Africa, July 24, 2019. Republished on South African History online.
Simbao, Ruth. 2018. “Capturing the Soweto Uprising: South Africa’s most iconic photograph lives on”, Conversation Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2018. “Igniting public space at the Chale Wote street art festival in Accra”. Conversation Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2018. Installation view: Chale Wote Festival 2018 (The 8th Chale Wote street art festival took place in James Town, Accra in Ghana from 20 -26 August 2018). Contemporaryand magazine.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. “Located on an Oblique Slanted Line: Thania Petersen’s Remnants” (Exhibition text). Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. International exhibition text (co-authored with Masimba Hwati). “Street Slang and Visual Improv: Gareth Nyandoro’s Kuchekacheka”. Armory Show, New York.
Simbao, Ruth. 2017. International exhibition catalogue. “A Song of Uhuru and a Difficult Dance: Anawana Haloba’s Sound Memories of TAZARA”. Publication edited by Michael McGarry for the Chinafrika exhibition in Leipzig, Germany.
Simbao, Ruth. 2016. “Positioning Noko: Unearthing the ‘cosmo’ in the ‘local’” in Galerie Noko: Ambassador’s Footprint, Cape Town Art Fair, pp4-9.
Simbao, Ruth. 2016. (Exhibition catalogue essay). Essay for the Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition catalogue, "Performing stillness in order to move: Mohau Modisakeng's becoming". Cape Town: Whatiftheworld Gallery. [This text was first printed as an exhibition text in 2015 at Whatiftheworld Gallery and then was published in the SBYA award book in 2016].
Simbao, Ruth. 2016. Exhibition essay. “Africa’ and consumption is a vertiginous world”. Exhibition essay for “Consuming Us”. Cape Town International Convention Centre. February 2016.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. Portraits of the ‘deathlessness of cloth’: Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou’s Egungun Masquerades series. (Exhibition essay). Cape Town: SMAC Gallery.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. Invited exhibition catalogue essay. “Kudzanai Chiurai: The State of the Nation”. In the Johannesburg Pavilion, Venice, edited by Roelof van Wyk Lee-Ann Orton. Johannesburg: 133 Arts and the Joburg Art Fair. (Exhibition catalogue for the Venice Biennial). ISBN 9780620656276.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. Exhibition booklet. BLIND SPOT Performance Art Programme booklet. Grahamstown: Visual and Performing Arts of Africa. ISBN: 9780868104812, pp 1-28.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “Performing Stillness in Order to move: Mohau Modisakeng’s Becoming” (Invited exhibition catalogue essay). Cape Town: Brundyn+ Gallery.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. “When Backs are Turned: Process…Aftermath” in Night Fighter: Time to Time, Text to text (Invited exhibition catalogue essay). (The divergence of Andrew Jeptha’s booklet in the exhibition Night Fighter) by Kurt Campbell. Cape Town: UCT, Michaelis School of Fine Art, pp 14-20.
Simbao, Ruth. 2015. Review of The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life edited by Okwui Enwezor and Rory Bester (Book review). Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(3): 602-604.
Simbao, Ruth. Simbao, Ruth. 2013. Performance booklet (insert) for Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China. Grahamstown: Visual and Performing Arts of Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2012. “Tamar Garb, Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography” (Book Review). Kronos: Southern African Histories. 38, November 2012, 272-275.
Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Talking Art at the Festival”, Art South Africa 10(1), Spring 2011, 20-21.
2011. Invited international exhibition catalogue essay (translated into Finnish). “Mary Sibande” in ARS II, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Finland. ISBN 978-951-53-3337-7. (English and Finnish).
Simbao, Ruth. 2011. “Doing it for comfort” in Artthrob online magazine. 2011.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. “Spier: Janus Face” in Art South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. International invited exhibition essay (English & Danish). ‘Symptoms of (Art) History: Diagnosing our Current Past’ in The Good Old Days edited by Clare Butcher. Denmark: Arhus Kunstbygning, 10-11. ISBN 978-87-92025-09-8. (English and Danish).
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. “One Day, All of This Will Be Yours: James Webb at Blank Projects” in Artthrob online magazine. 2010.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. “Zambian Dress” in Eicher, Joanne B. (ed.). Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion. (Volume on African Dress). London: Berg Publications. 2010. Print edition ISBN: 978-1-84788-104-5. Online edition: bergfashionlibrary.com.
Simbao, Ruth. 2010. Mary Sibande. MOMO Gallery, Johannesburg. 2010. (Essay also used for the National Arts Festival exhibition).
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. (Translated into Portuguese and Spanish). “A cena Afri não é o que parece”, “El panorama Afri no es lo que parece”. PróximoFuturo (Next Future) 1:22-25. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “Meshac Gaba and Bili Bidjocka”, Art South Africa, Summer 2009.
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “Infecting the City” (Spier Performance Art festival) in Art South Africa.
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “Dungamanzi/Stirring Waters: Tsonga and Shangaan Art from Southern Africa” in De Arte (Book review). UNISA Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2009. “Umtshotsho: Nicholas Hlobo” (Review of 2009 Standard Bank winner) in Artthrob online magazine.
Simbao, Ruth. 2008. “Bernie Searle”, Art South Africa 7(2) Summer 2008. (Exhibition review).
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “Cape ’07,” (Exhibition Review). Art South Africa 5 (4), Winter 2007, pp 64-65.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. Light on a Hill: Building the Constitutional Court,” De Arte 2007, pp 86-88. (Book review). UNISA Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “Fresh: Artist’s Residency Program” (Book review), Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 21, Fall 2007. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 122-123.
Simbao, Ruth. 2007. “Konse Kubili: Kalinosi Mutale and Anawana Haloba” (exhibition review), Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 21, Fall 2007. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 124-125.
Simbao, Ruth. 2006. (Exhibition Review). “National Arts Festival,” Art South Africa 5 (1), Spring 2006, pp 66-67. (Review of three exhibitions: Churchill Madikida, Zola Toyi and the Figuring Faith exhibition curated by Wits University Gallery and WISER). Cape Town: Bell Roberts Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2006. “AmaNdebele,” De Arte 74, 2006, pp 61-64. (Review of AmaNdebele by Peter Magubane and Sandra Klopper, 2005). UNISA Press.
Simbao, Ruth. 2005. “Lechwe Trust Collection,” African Arts 38 (3) Autumn 2005, pp 78-80.
Simbao, Ruth. 2004. “Mwamenezili (The Way It Is), (Exhibition Review).” African Arts 37 (2), Summer 2004. Artists Geoffrey Phiri and Friday Tembo, Lusaka, Zambia. (Exhibition review). Cambridge, Massachusetts and Los Angeles: MIT Press and UCLA, 81-83 and 96.
Simbao, Ruth. 2004. Simbao Ruth & Annear, Christopher M. “Hansen, Salaula: The world of Secondhand clothing and Zambia,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 37 (1) 2004. Boston: Boston University, 172-174.
Simbao, Ruth. 2003. Co-existence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa,” (Exhibition review). NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art 18, Spring/Summer 2003. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 92-93. (Review of Co-Existence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Massachusetts).
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “Seydou Keita: Mid-Century Modern,” Mix Magazine 26 (2), Fall 2000, p 51. Toronto, Canada.
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “Stan Douglas: A Persistent Seam in the Loop,” (Exhibition Review). Fuse Magazine: Art Media Politics 23 (1), Winter 1999-2000, Toronto, Canada, 42-44. (Artist Stan Douglas, Power Plant gallery, Toronto, Canada).
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “Odd Bodies,” exhibition essay for Odd Bodies exhibition, curated by Diana Nemiroff, National Gallery of Canada (International Exhibition Essay). Ottawa, Canada, 2000. (The exhibition also toured to Edmonton and Toronto, Canada).
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “Contaminated Symptoms: Photography from the Permanent Collection,” (International Exhibition Essay) for the exhibition Contaminated Symptoms that I curated as Guest Curator at Oakville Galleries, Toronto, Canada.
Simbao, Ruth. 2000. “William Kentridge: Weighing…and Wanting,” (International Exhibition Essay). Exhibition essay for Canadian tour of William Kentridge: Weighing…and Wanting (from the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.
Simbao, Ruth. 1999. “Crossings: Transnational Echoes and the Proximity of Distance,” (Exhibition Review). Third Text 46, Summer 1999, London: Routledge, 97-100. (Discussion on issues of diaspora based on the Crossings exhibition).
Simbao, Ruth. 1999. “Crossings,” (Exhibition Review). Parachute: Revue d’Art Contemporain/Contemporary Art 95, July - September 1999. Montreal, Canada, 44-45.
Simbao, Ruth. 1999. “Displacements,” Lola 4, Summer 1999. Toronto, Canada, 52. (Review of Displacements curated by Jesica Bradley, Art Gallery of Ontario. Artists in the exhibition: Rachel Whiteread, Doris Solcedo, and Miroslaw Balka).
Simbao, Ruth. 1999. (Book Review). “Contemporary South African Art: 1985-1995,” Third Text 45, Winter 1998-1999. London: Routledge, 104-106.
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