ANDYMKOSI

ANDYMKOSI is a Creative Entrepreneur, whose art reflects and interprets life as it exists both outside and behind her eyes. Her work is an extension of the reflexive exploration of the world around her, a way of understanding her own lived experience as a black woman from the township and she presents her observations with a startling sincerity. Furthermore, she holds contemporary society up to the light to see where the holes are, investigating the chaotic world and her work is honest, graceful and raw in equal measures. Additionally, ANDYMKOSI has worked with numerous companies and artists such as Puma SA, StandardBank, Nomzamo Mbatha, Jackie Queens and The Forge to name a few. 

ANDYMKOSI co-directed, produced, filmed and edited a feature length documentary in 2021. The documentary considers "the personal as the political" with a focus on farmworkers in Bedford (Nyarha), Eastern Cape. It seeks to document the lived experiences and struggles of farmworkers. How do the people who work the land articulate their relationship (historical and cultural) to the land as workers and dwellers?

She has exhibited alongside award winning photographer Neo Ntsoma as a result of a week-long workshop in Cape Town, 2019. Ultimately, the work resulted in a group exhibition titled Inequality: A Different Picture, and it was shown both in Cape Town’s Company Gardens and Johannesburg’s Constitutional Hill during Human Rights Day. Furthermore, the exhibition continues to visit various institutions. She completed a Photojournalism and Documentary course at The Market Photo Workshop in that same year.

In Mkosi’s quest to explore space in her work, she curated and established a project of musical experiences which she coined the Bedroom Tour. With a band, she started performing in the homes of fans for intimate crowds in collaboration with Bontehewuel-based media company DLJ powering the events. The series has featured a host of artists and singers including Zoe Modiga and Thesis Za. In 2020, she launched a project called Queer Audio is Visual, a live interaction and musical performance by Queer artists which included muscian Zulu Mecca and and photographer and DJ Jodi Windvogel. This collaborative effort took place at The Forge, in Braamfontein.

Mkosi’s work has appeared in multiple publications, including The Mail and Guardian, ContemporaryAnd and poet Koleka Putuma's best seller Collective Amnesia. In addition to photography, Mkosi also co-directed Vocal Revolutionaries, an organization that helps young people to discover themselves and others through the literary and performing arts. She has also written for OkayAfrica, NewFrame and contributed towards an essay for the publication They Called Me Queer, a collection of queer stories from queer identifying individuals across South Africa.

Lastly, Mkosi started a podcast called This Audio is Visual in 2019, which engages fellow photographers in conversation about their work. While working on the podcast with photographer/filmmaker and writer Tseliso Monaneng, they both interview internationally acclaimed artists to bring focus to African photography and image making in its entirety across the diaspora.