My name is Assante Chiweshe and I am a visual artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. My work heavily relies on this need to discover my identity through the interacting with the community I am in. I began my career capturing the pulse of local nightlife before developing a practice centred on intimacy, authenticity, and storytelling. Having parents that were born in neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Zimbabwe and being born and raised in South Africa, I had always battled with my identity as a queer black woman. Visual storytelling is currently helping me discover and consolidate my own sense of belonging as well as being able to connect and tell other people’s stories. The kind of work I mainly focus on is fashion and commercial and documentary photography whilst having a passion for motion and directing. 

I believe it is important, as a person of colour, to be able to keep creating worlds where visual art does not need to solely focus on pain and suffering but be whimsical and captivating. I have an intuitive understanding of human emotion and I try my best to prioritise the human experience when comes to capturing my subject matter that extends into making beautiful work that could last for decades to come. I really do want to be the kind of representation I did not grow up. Black female artists came few and far in-between

My portfolio includes collaborations with Netflix, Nike, Ellesse, Converse, Showmax South Africa, Wanted Magazine, Standard Bank, Boiler Room, Adidas x Room Studio, My Friend Ned, and more.