A former artist-in-residence at Greatmore Studios in Woodstock, Cape Town, Dathini Mzayiya was born in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in 1979. After studying advertising and marketing at the Advertising College of South Africa, Cape Town, in 1999, he enrolled at the Peninsula Technikon, Bellville, Cape Town, in 2000, where he studied graphic design and advertising. He then registered for the Advanced Programme in Visual Arts at the Community Arts Project (CAP), Cape Town, in 2001. At CAP, he was taught drawing and painting by Joseph Gaylard and Sarah Schneckloth. Since then, he has shown his work, not only in South Africa, but in various parts of the world, notably Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Ethiopia. He has also participated in international projects, including a project for the South African Human Rights Media Centre in Liberia and Kenya, where he worked with survivors of torture and war. Dathini is a founding member of Western Cape branch of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA); Africa South Arts Initiative (ASAI); CitySkin, a public space design firm; and Gugulective, an arts, culture and open education collective intent on making “the history and legacy of apartheid visible again and to combat it with artistic methods.”