Anyone can be Lucifer

Collage and photomontage have long been used to create worlds. The early modernists understood this well when they integrated cutting and collage techniques into their Dada, Surrealist, and Constructivist practices, creating radical counter-realities that subverted dominant worldviews. Made from salvaged or found materials, their works exploited the potential for abstraction, manipulation, and provocation inherent in photography, and offered an effective tool for critiquing the burgeoning fascist ideology.

A century later, Thato Toeba continues this tradition. They are a disruptor, perhaps even a contemporary Dadaist. Their work exposes flawed ideologies and offers an alternative to colonial and imperialist narratives.

Thato Toeba, civilians I [civils I], 2025 - Courtesy of the artist and the gallery