Dr Ruth Sacks (b. 1977) is a visual artist and academic whose creative practice is based in artist books, sculptural installations and writing. Her research interests include southern cities in the Anthropocene, decolonizing design and post independence aesthetics in Africa. Sacks’ first academic monograph, Congo Style: From Belgian Art Nouveau to African Independence (Michigan University Press) was published by Michigan University Press in 2023. Her most recent artist book, The Remaindering, launched in 2022. Sacks is a senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (Visual Art Department). Sacks was one of the co-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).