Ruth Sacks (b. 1977) is a visual artist and academic whose creative practice is based in sculptural installations that link together artist books, objects and writing. She is interested in postcolonial ecologies of the African city in the time of climate crisis, particularly plants and architectural remains. As an academic, Sacks published her first monograph with Michigan University Press in 2023. Her artists books, in which she combines original prose with her designs, date back to 2010 (False Friends), with the most recent being The Remaindering (2022). Sacks is an Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (Visual Art Department), where she has worked since 2021. She was one of the directors of the large-scale group project Response-ability at the Joubert Park Greenhouse Project (Johannesburg, 2020-1).

Group exhibitions include: Style Congo: Heritage and Heresy at CIVA Museum & Archive (Brussels, 2023), Overwhelmed at the UJ Art Gallery (Johannesburg, 2023), AMBERES at M KHA Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp, 2019), Future Africa: Visions in Time at the National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi, 2017) and Iwalewa-Haus (Bayreuth, 2015), The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989 at ZKM |Centre for Art and Media (Karlsruhe, 2011), Performa 09, facilitated by the Museum for African Art (New York, 2009), the African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (Venice, 2007) and the 1st Architecture, Art and Landscape Biennale of the Canaries (Tenerife, 2006). Solo exhibitions include: Concrete Ecologies at PULP (Johannesburg, 2022), Matterings at TPO (Johannesburg, 2017), Open Endings at TTTT (Ghent, 2015), 2,000 Meters Above the Sea at CHR (Johannesburg, 2012), Double-Sided Accumulated at Extraspazio (Rome, 2010), False Friends at Kunstverein (Amsterdam, 2010) and Open Studio at Cortex Athletico (Bourdeaux, 2007).