Maria Fidel Regueros
Director
maria@bagfactoryart.org.za
As an Independent Curator, Lecturer, Researcher and Project Manager and a mother of two incredible teenagers, Maria has been involved in numerous creative projects in both South Africa and abroad.
Within South Africa’s creative industry in general and the visual arts sector in particular, Maria has occupied various positions within Municipal and Tertiary Institutions, and Non-profit Organisations. Within these entities her roles have focused on strategic development, content research, project and organisational development, curatorial exhibition projects, educational content and audience development strategies within small, medium to large scale projects.
Between 2011 – 2020, Maria founded and co-directed the arts organisation /project space ROOM Space & Projects NPC, in Johannesburg. ROOM focused on the presentation of works by young career South African and regional artists and training of Arts Administrators/Curators. Since late 2022, she has held the position of Director at the iconic visual arts institution Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her Colombian/Bulgarian background combined with her residing in the Southern African region since the late 80s and in South Africa since 2000, have shaped her commitment and focus on South Africa and Global South issues. Her passion for the development of the creative industries, and visual arts in particular resonate in her professional involvements and practice.
Maria is an Alumni of Wits University and the International Curators Intensive (ICI) Network (USA) and De Appel’s Gallerist Programme (Netherlands). Currently, Maria is completing her MBA at Henley Business School’s Africa Campus in Johannesburg.
Ntshadi Mofokeng is a cultural worker and producer.. Her interdisciplinary practice spans visual and performing arts, public programming, and cultural policy.
She is currently Programmes Manager at Bag Factory Artists’ Studios in Johannesburg, where she oversees artist residencies, exhibitions, public programmes, and the administration of artist prizes. Her role supports an intergenerational artist community by advancing inclusive and artist-centred programming.
Ntshadi has served in both artistic and strategic leadership roles, including as Festival Manager for Harlem Meet Africa, Producer at Gregory Maqoma Industries, and Chief Operations Officer at Equal Education. Across these roles, she has coordinated interdisciplinary festivals, international fellowships and exchanges, symposia and public education programs. Her commitment to cultural organising is reflected in her involvement with the inaugural national steering committee of the Theatre and Dance Association (TADA) as well as recognition through fellowships including the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) Global Fellowship and the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation Leadership Initiative.
Her curatorial and archival engagements include projects with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program; let slip, hold sway, a dance production by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born; Tongues of Our Mothers: a symposium on feminist historiographies at the Institute for Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town; and Broken Chord, a dance production by Gregory Maqoma and Thuthuka Sibisi. As a writer, her work has appeared in the Mail & Guardian, Creative Feel, City Life Arts, Ground Up and The Ar(t)chive, engaging themes of cultural labor, public memory, and sustainability.
She holds an MA in Arts and Public Policy from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College. Across her work, she is guided by a belief in the transformative power of live art, feminist epistemologies, collaboration, and building cultural spaces rooted in care, access, and justice.
Wanda is currently pursuing a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and has ambitions to one day open his own gallery.
Wanda Gqala
Projects and Administrative Assistant
wanda@bagfactoryart.org.za
nqobile natasia
Communications Coordinator & Artist Liaison
nqobile@bagfactoryart.org.za
nqobile natasia (affectionately known as Rick) is a multidisciplinary arts practitioner and cultural worker, specialising in a number of design mediums, production management and coordination, as well as working in communications and publicity within the visual arts and commercial sector. Rick’s practical experience ranges from stage hand in their earlier university years, to design and stage management and film set, and costume since then. Working with directors such as Kamogelo Molobye, Gavin Matthys, Neka DaCosta and VR Theatrical production company, as well as Norman Maake and African Entertainers production company.
Rick is currently serving as a Communications Coordinator and Artist Liaison at Bag Factory Artists’ Studios facilitating internal and external communications and social media strategies, leading in building and maintaining the brand voice, website design and maintenance as well as coordinating publicity events.
Rick uses their broad experience from their participation at The Centre for the Less Good Idea where they sharpened their skills in the wide world puppetry and its design, as well as technical skills in projection mapping and stop motion film making. Working with African Entertainers’ producer, Princess Mhlongo, on a range of productions from visual arts-live performance film, and theatre set and costume design, Rick practices the scenographic art of world building; the ability to create something, a place, a path, that mimics, alters, and distorts the way we’ve come to understand reality. Through maximalism and Black magical realism they redefine the aesthetics of the world they know and the world they were and still are building, harnessing the range of their work in operations and publicity management for both the cultural and commercial sector, they have begun to implement modes of extending this world to the digital.