
In 2015, Ruga was awarded The Grahamstown National Arts Festival’s 2015 Standard Bank Young Artist for Performance Art and presented The Elder of Azania, a work that is part of his ongoing performance series The Future Women of Azania, first conceived in 2010.
Other recent performances of The Elder of Azania were included in the Johannesburg Pavilion during the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in Italy All The World’s Futures curated by Okwui Enwezor in 2015 and Public Intimacy, Yerba Buena Centre/SFMOMA, San Francisco in 2014. In 2016, Ruga was commissioned to do a performance piece entitled Over the Rainbow for the Performa Gala in New York. Other solo exhibitions include: Athi-Patra Ruga, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, Florida, USA (2016); A Land without a People… for a People without a Land, In Situ Fabienne Leclerc Gallery, Paris (2015) and a tapestry commission and exhibition for Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton (2014).
Recent group shows include AFRICA: Architecture, Culture and Identity, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana, USA (2015); The Film Will Always Be You: South African Artists on Screen, Tate Modern, London, UK (2014) and Imaginary Fact, 55th Venice Biennale, Johannesburg Pavilion, Venice, Italy (2013).