Curators: Rucera Seethal and Niren Tolsi

Production Assistant: Shenka Naidoo

Dr Taryn Isaacs De Vega (Moderator) is an academic and researcher in the field of media studies, with a particular focus on media ethics, accountability, and regulation in South Africa. She completed her doctoral thesis on Media Accountability Mechanisms in South Africa with the Media Policy and Democracy Project at UNISA and advocates for media freedom, accompanied by transparency and integrity in the industry. She is an academic at the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies and works alongside civil society movements to support projects in the public interest.

Dr Siphiwo Mahala is a multi-award-winning author, playwright and academic. He is a graduate of the University of Fort Hare, holds a Masters degree in African Literature from Wits University and a PhD in English Literature from the University of South Africa. He is the author of the novel, When a Man Cries (2007), which he translated into isiXhosa under the title, Yakhal’ Indoda (2010). He also penned two short story collections, African Delights (2011) and Red Apple Dreams and Other Stories (2019), and two critically acclaimed plays, The House of Truth (2016) and Bloke and His American Bantu (2021). His latest book Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi (2022), won the Creative Non-Fiction Award at the South African Literary Awards. He is the winner of the 2021/22 PanSALB Multilingualism Award for English Literature. In 2023 he won the Emerging Researcher Award and the Students’ Choice Teaching Award in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg. He is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Johannesburg, editor of Imbiza Journal for African Writing and serves as the Deputy Chairperson of the board of the National Arts Festival.

Niren Tolsi is an award-winning South African journalist, writer and curator based in Cape Town. He is the recipient of the Ruth First Fellowship and his journalism awards include the 2009 South African Journalist of the Year (Feature category) and the 2016 South African Arts Journalist of the Year.

He is currently interested in transitioning investigative journalism into new multi-media spaces including installations and exhibitions. He is especially interested in the transformative effects of art, inclusion and repair, on survivors of intergenerational violence and trauma. His major work is the ongoing “slow journalism” project, After Marikana, with photographer Paul Botes. In 2022 he directed and co-curated the Marikana, Ten Years On exhibition and public engagement programme at the National Arts Festival. A pop-up version of this exhibition with accompanying art-making workshops has travelled to communities affected by mining and state violence. In 2016 he and the late Peter McKenzie (Durban Centre of Photography) worked on ‘The Con-Struction Cartel’ investigation and exhibition supported by the Goethe Institute and the Taco Kuiper Foundation.

He was one of the founders of The Con, a now defunct long-form and literary magazine produced in Johannesburg from 2014-2017. His areas of journalistic interest include Constitutional Law and the politics of the judiciary, the rise of Jacob Zuma, environmental crisis and authoritarianism; social justice; urban politics; fine arts; jazz music; Test cricket and the politics of food.

Kyle Findlay is a data scientist, researcher, writer, and part-time investigative journalist. He delves into social media to uncover the narratives shaping our nation and the forces trying to reshape it. With a keen focus on covert influence operations and the "commodification of online influence," he explores how these elements drive societal polarisation and fuel our post-truth era.