Anthea Moys was born in 1980 in Johannesburg, where she currently lives and works. A performance artist, Moys believes that creativity and risk taking are important generators for initiating newer approaches in engaging with the arts. With a focus on structured play and performance in public space, she finds expression in her work through the staging of collaborative performances that aim to foster connections between different communities and the spaces they inhabit. In her own practice as well as through her position as an educator, Moys is interested in how “play” implicates and involves the audience—invoking a three-way dialogues between herself, her audience, and the places in which her activities happen.
Moys has shown her work in South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, London, Australia, Miami, New York, and Berlin. In 2009, as the winner of the Brait-Everard Read Award, she staged her first solo show in South Africa. She has participated in various residency programs, including Infecting the City in Cape Town (2009) and the Monash University residency in Melbourne, Australia (2010). As the inaugural winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art in 2013, she is working on realizing an exhibition that reflects on her 2013 performance series Anthea Moys vs The City of Grahamstown.
