What if being playful, soft, glamorous, emotional or unapologetically feminine wasn’t something to explain away — but something worth taking seriously?
That is the question at the heart of Pretty Serious, a new group exhibition at ORMS School of Photography in collaboration with Art School Africa, bringing together Cape Town-based artists for a colourful and layered take on femininity this Women’s Month.
Running from 6–29 August 2026, the exhibition moves beyond familiar conversations about womanhood. Instead, it asks what happens when women reclaim the lighter, messier and more joyful parts of themselves.
Femininity Doesn’t Need Permission
There is something quietly radical about saying, “I’m just a girl,” and meaning it.
Pretty Serious embraces that energy — the fashion, beauty, tenderness, excess, humour, fantasy and everyday rituals that can sometimes be dismissed as superficial.
Here, they become creative material.
The exhibition explores femininity as something fluid and performative, but also deeply personal. It creates room for contradiction: softness can coexist with strength, beauty can carry political weight, and play can become a form of resistance.
For a generation navigating social media, beauty culture, identity politics and constantly shifting expectations, that feels particularly relevant.
From Girlhood to Creative Freedom
Curated and produced by Buchanan & Co., Pretty Serious brings together a diverse selection of artistic practices, including photography, painting, sculpture, printmaking, collage and fibre art.
The participating artists include Alexia Smit, Alka Jiven, Celeste Jacobs, Edinah Chagwedera, Inge Prins, Kauthar Kamish, Khanyisa Buthelezi, Kristen McClarty, Zarah Cassim, Nina Turok Shapiro, Lauren Hendricks, Martha Kubule, Myra Brown, Sanell Aggenbach, Antonia Steyn, Reem Aljeally, Sera Holland, Sharday Swanepoel, Sundus Saad and Zimkhitha Mabonga.
Rather than presenting one definitive version of femininity, the exhibition offers many.
That plurality is important. South African womanhood cannot be reduced to one aesthetic, experience or narrative — and neither can femininity.
Taking Joy Seriously
The exhibition follows Many Selves, the inaugural Women’s Month collaboration between ORMS and Art School Africa in 2025.
With Pretty Serious, the conversation shifts towards joy as something with its own cultural and emotional power.
Beauty becomes more than decoration. Tenderness becomes more than vulnerability. Play becomes more than escapism.
In a world where women are often expected to constantly perform strength, productivity and resilience, making space for pleasure can itself feel disruptive.
Pretty Serious makes a compelling case for exactly that: sometimes the seemingly frivolous parts of life are where freedom begins.
See It for Yourself
The exhibition opened with a Collectors’ Preview followed by the public opening on 6 August, and remains on view at ORMS School of Photography until 29 August 2026.
For young creatives and anyone interested in the evolving visual language of contemporary South African culture, Pretty Serious offers more than an exhibition.
It is an invitation to reconsider what we dismiss as “girly” — and ask whether we have underestimated its power all along.
