About

FRITHA LANGERMAN is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Centre for Curating the Archive, Michaelis School of Fine Art. Langerman trained at the University of Cape Town (BAFA, MFA) where she completed her PhD entitled: The exploded book: a disarticulation of visual knowledge systems within sites of natural history display. Her research is of an interdisciplinary nature and research interests include curatorship; scientific representation of the body and the display and ordering of information. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has number of public commissioned works, including the 3rd Cape Town Public Sculpture Commission, Babylonstoren wine estate, the West Coast Fossil Park and installations in the Pharmacology, Pathology, Public Health Dept and Chemistry Departments at the University of Cape Town. Her awards include a UCT Junior Fellow’s Award (2007) and the UCT Creative Works Award (2010). Her solo exhibition Subtle Thresholds at the Iziko South African Museum (2009 – 2010) examined modes of display within natural history museums with reference to the representational taxonomy of infectious disease while the exhibition R-A-T (2012 – 2013), also at the Iziko South African Museum, used a single species to comment on hierarchies of display and the iconography of evolution within museums of natural history. Her most recent exhibition, FREIGHTED (2019-) travelled from South Africa to the Lisbon Museum of Science and Natural History and has many other European destinations scheduled.