Kim Gurney

Kim Gurney is a writer, artist and researcher. She is currently based at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape (UWC), working on her fourth non-fiction book, ‘Flipside: The Inadvertent Archive’, which is in production with iwalewabooks.

Her writing, which crosses genre but favours long-form creative non-fiction, is inflected by a former life as a journalist and News Editor and often seeks out backstage narratives. Kim is widely published in different genres. She is the author of ‘Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa’ (Motto, Berlin & Lausanne), ‘August House is Dead, Long Live August House! The Story of a Johannesburg Atelier’ (Fourthwall, Johannesburg), and ‘The Art of Public Space: Curating and Re-imagining the Ephemeral City’ (Palgrave Macmillan, London).

Kim’s artistic practice engages disappearances of different kinds and makes restorative gestures. She has a studio in a Salt River collective, collaborates with other artists on curatorial projects, and runs a nomadic platform, guerilla gallery (b.2012) which activates off-sites.

Kim holds a PhD (University of Cape Town), BFA with Distinction in Discourse of Art (Michaelis, UCT), MA in International Journalism (City, University of London), and BJourn with Distinction (Rhodes). She has held various long-term academic affiliations including Research Associate at African Centre for Cities (UCT) for over a decade, Research Associate at VIAD (Visual Identities in Art & Design) Research Centre (UJ) for several years, and five years with UWC.

This website brings together Kim’s interdisciplinary work.