The 2025 Cassirer Welz Award has been awarded to sculptor Smiso Cele, recognising his outstanding contribution as an emerging artist. The award, now in its fourteenth year, is jointly organised by the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios and Strauss & Co., with support from the French Institute of South Africa. It provides a platform for young artists to develop their practice through a residency at the Bag Factory, culminating in a solo exhibition.
Cele’s practice engages with memory, migration, labour, and the intersections of ecology and urban life. His winning work, a sculptural installation using shovels, was praised for its conceptual depth and the way it reflects Johannesburg’s history and present.
The following Q/A offers insight into his approach, influences, and aspirations as he begins his residency.
Your winning sculpture uses shovels to speak about Johannesburg’s history and present. What inspired this choice, and what does it mean in your work?
The object untouched is a convenient way of tending to my interests concerning gardening and gardening amidst South Africa’s construction of cities, rooted in the apartheid urban planning (which continued an ongoing practice of forced removals), migration, and the intersections of ecology and geopolitics. All that comes secondary or as the “encountered” after attempts to think about/with the bedroom I shared with my siblings, which was used as a storage space. In that same bedroom, gardening tools (mainly shovels) were housed.
The award had a strong shortlist. How did you approach presenting your work, and what do you think made it stand out?
More than anything, I shared my work with the jury sincerely. I moved from parts of myself that are inescapable to theoretical themes that I refer to as the ‘Encountered’. An example of this was how I moved from working with the experience of having lived in a small house to engaging with the histories of Auckland, a place I could also refer to as the “Encountered theme” in my work.
The residency at Bag Factory will lead to a solo exhibition. What are your goals for this residency, and how do you hope it will influence your next work?
My main goal in every residency opportunity I get is to learn something new. It could be a skill that will contribute to the technicality of my work, or other skills, like how I go about speaking about my work and how I share it with the public.
The Cassirer Welz Award has a long history and strong partners. How does being part of this legacy affect you as an emerging artist?
I am grateful to have been appointed as a contributor to this long history. I think I can only speak about how this legacy affects me after I have made and exhibited the work I’ll do during the residency. For now, I am looking forward to starting to make, and I am again very grateful to have been given an opportunity to make work and have a solo exhibition after the residency.
Your work touches on migration, labour, memory, and urban life. Do you plan to keep exploring these themes, or are you looking to move in new directions?
As I mentioned in the 2nd question, I think of themes as the encountered parts in my work, and often they come after I am done. I have always thought of the theme-first approach as an intellectually speculative way of making art, and it has never worked for me. I will only know once I have finished if I have stretched my practice into engaging with new themes. There is a possibility of incorporating a different medium.
Read more about the 2025 Cassirer-Welz Award here.
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