Akhona Bankolo

Together We Live
Virtual Exhibition Cortex Hub 2021

I grew up in a very small town named Indwe. I grew up without my parents from teenager to who I am today. Growing up was not easy as I had to take care of my brothers and a little sister whom my mother left when she was only three. I always had a dream of being a fashion designer and I knew one day that is possible. When my mother died I was also left with my father who had stroke, I had no choice but to also take care of him and dropped out of school on my third year. He died and I went to Cape Town that year to pursue my dreams and got a chance to work as a visual specialist, and lucky me in 8 months I was promoted to become a visual departmental manager.

To cut the story short in 2016 got sick with chronic kidney disease of which I hade to drop out of work and get a dialysis treatment 3 times a week for four hours each day, but that did not stop me from chasing my dreams. I thank king God for giving me strength. I went back to school, then I passed all my modules 13 of them.

In year 2020 corona pandemic affected a lot of people from stage 5 to stage 1, where by a lot of businesses were closed. That affected us, the country, employees etc.

My concept in my designs comes from the situation of alcohol being over used by people as their coping mechanism, on the news papers we have seen the news about gender base violence, man abusing and killing their wives. We have seen alcohol being closed and people loosing their jobs, and also economy being affected, throma units in hospitals used to be full and after closing of alcohol they were empty. This project inspired me a lot and I used beer glasses and newspapers. Hope my designs will send a clear message about where I come from.

Akhona Bankolo