THE BROTHER MOVES ON

Self proclaimed art movement The Brother Moves On is an ever-evolving performance art collective founded by Nkululeko Mthembu and his brother Siyabonga Mthembu. Determined to belie any one definition, the collective’s work is often deliberately improvised and unpredictable. Collaboration drives the collective, which strives to undermine the traditional authority of individual artist practice and ownership.

Long term members of the collective include Siyabonga Mthembu, Zelizwe Mthembu, Ayanda Zalekile, Simphiwe Tshabalala, Oscar Kgware, Itani Thalefi, Hlubi Vhakalise, Malcolm Jiyane , Nolan Oswald Dennis and Stuart Cairns but membership is constantly fluctuating and transient.

Various performers, writers, artists, musicians and activists may collaborate at any given time on different projects before moving on.

The collective create live performances and installations so that meaning is generated through an experience rather than contained within one object. Fiction, re-enactment and the fantastical are utilised in performances like The Afterlife of Mr Gold, which chronicles both the life and afterlife of a supernatural fat cat–and The Brother Breaks the Bullion and The Brother Burns the Bullion–where real word economics and queer identity are amalgamated into a fable of greed and power.

In combining elements of fiction, the supernatural and the fantastical with factual history or recorded ‘truths’ in their installations and performances, The Brother Moves On defamiliarises our experience of both our present and our past. Performative fiction, which drives so much of The Brother Moves On instigates the altered realities through which the collective critique and comment on the socio-political issues of our own reality.