In a world that so often asks artists to explain themselves, the six recipients of the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist Awards are doing something far more radical, they’re reimagining the world instead.
Announced in Johannesburg on 10 April 2025, this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist Awards (SBYA) not only mark four decades of artistic excellence but also usher in a generation of boundary-blurring visionaries. These are artists who work in movement, in myth, in sound, and in silence. Creators who carry their histories with them as they stride boldly into the unknown.
Since 1981, the SBYA has been one of South Africa’s most revered cultural honours, a celebration of emerging excellence across artistic disciplines, and a signal to the world that here, the future of art is always in motion. The roll call of previous winners reads like a constellation: William Kentridge, Andrew Buckland, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, Mbongeni Ngema, and Nduduzo Makhathini among them. Now, six new stars join their ranks.
Asanda Ruda (Dance)
From community halls in Soweto to international stages, Asanda Ruda’s choreography is a meditation on ancestry, emotion, and embodied memory. Her acclaimed solo, Kemet (Black Lands), is less a performance and more a conjuring of myth, of history, of movement as language.
A member of the Pina Bausch Foundation and recipient of the 2025 Choreographers Research Residency Award in Paris, Ruda dances with both feet rooted in the past and arms stretched toward the future.
Siyasanga “Siya” Charles (Jazz)
Siya Charles is not just playing jazz, she’s redefining it. The Juilliard-trained trombonist, who graduated magna cum laude, has played alongside Hugh Masekela and Grammy-winners alike, but it’s through the Siya Charles Sextet that her vision comes into full bloom.
Her sound is fearless, fluid, and rooted in the rhythms of home. With every brassy note, Charles is expanding the canon and carrying South African jazz into thrilling new terrain.
Muneyi (Music)
In Muneyi’s music, language dissolves and memory speaks. Born in Limpopo and raised on stories whispered by his Makhulu, Muneyi creates folk songs that pulse with love, longing, and identity.
His soundscape is as much ancestral archive as it is innovation, a deeply personal yet universally resonant expression of what it means to belong and to search for home in the layers of song.
Modise Sekgothe (Poetry)
Modise Sekgothe doesn’t just write poems. He performs them into being, shapeshifting through sound, rhythm, and form. Whether on stages in Washington DC, Gothenburg, or Brussels, Sekgothe transforms spoken word into performance art, into ritual, into sonic architecture.
His voice is both drum and breath, a reminder that poetry can be a place where the soul meets the page.
Calvin Ratladi (Theatre)
To step into a Calvin Ratladi production is to enter another dimension. The SAFTA-winning playwright, director, and theatre-maker works across disciplines and borders, with Ovation Awards from the National Arts Festival and appearances at festivals in Germany and Luxembourg.
His work is immersive, expansive, and definitely experimental. Proof that theatre can be both mirror and dreamscape.
Nyakallo Maleke (Visual Arts)
Nyakallo Maleke doesn’t draw, she maps. Her works are cartographies of memory, space, and migration, drawn with an intimacy that invites the viewer into both the personal and the political.
With a Master’s from Switzerland’s EDHEA and exhibitions across Europe, Maleke’s visual language continues to evolve, deepening the conversation around drawing as not just a medium, but a method of witnessing.
Legacy in Motion
To win an SBYA is to step into a powerful lineage but it’s also a launchpad. Each recipient receives financial support, mentorship, and the opportunity to showcase their work at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda. It’s a moment of arrival, yes, but even more so, it’s an invitation to keep going, keep pushing, keep dreaming
“The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards continue to ignite the future of South African arts by celebrating visionary talent and inspiring new creative possibilities, to the winners, congratulations, we are honoured to support your journey to Makhanda and beyond.”-Monica Newton, CEO of the National Arts Festival
A 40-Year Commitment to Creativity
For Standard Bank, the arts are not a side note, they’re a living, breathing investment in the future. “We are proud to support this new generation of visionaries,” said Bonga Sebesho, Standard Bank’s Group Head of Sponsorship, “as they continue to shape the future of our cultural landscape and ensure that our creative heritage thrives for decades to come.”
As these six extraordinary talents prepare to take centre stage at the 2025 National Arts Festival, one thing is certain: the story of South African art is still being written and it’s in very good hands.
