Art by Mary Sibande

Sibande's recurring subject is Sophie, a life-size sculpted avatar dressed in elaborate Victorian domestic-worker uniforms fused with the exaggerated silhouette of a royal gown, a figure she's used across photography, sculpture, and installation since 2009 to explore the legacy of Black South African women's domestic labor under and after apartheid. The related body of work "The Purple Shall Govern" deliberately echoes both the anti-apartheid slogan "The People Shall Govern" and a 1989 police protest in which purple dye, sprayed on demonstrators to mark them for later arrest, was turned back against the state by protesters who dyed government buildings purple themselves. She represented South Africa at the 2011 Venice Biennale.