Rooted in Soil, Rising in Style: Athi-Patra Ruga’s Indlamu for Hazendal Wine Estate

It’s not every day a wine bottle makes you question identity, dance heritage, and post colonial politics all at once. However, South  African artist Athi-Patra Ruga has managed to converge them all into a single, limited-edition artwork. The new Artist Label Series from Hazendal Wine Estate beautifully mixes storytelling and a confident design language that refuses to be controlled. Under the curatorial direction of artists Khanyisile Mbongwa and Athi-Patra Ruga, the estate presented their 2017 Hazendal Prestige Brut Cap Classique in a bold and meaningful artwork turning the wine bottle into a celebration of creativity, freedom, and flair. It was created from their 2017 harvest, an elegant blend of 62% Chardonnay and 38% Pinot Noir, grown on the estate’s own land. Aged for seven years on the lees and finished with zero dosage, the wine was disgorged in 2024. This Cap Classique is South Africa’s take on  Champagne, shaped by its own cultural influence and history. Hazendal’s Artist Label  Series carries a deeper Athi-Patra Ruga intention. It invites reflection on land, on culture, and on the quiet labour that binds winemaking to art. Last  year, the estate launched its first festival around the theme of “soil”, a fitting choice for a wine that  matures slowly beneath the surface. That same sense of transformation, unfolding in stillness, is what shapes Athi-Patra Ruga’s artwork, Indlamu (2024). He describes the central figure as a body in “gestation”, rooted in the soil, waiting to grow their offshoots.  

Indlamu (2024) by Athi-Patra Ruga 

“A person who is about to unfurl and  rise, and has been in dormancy for a  long time,” Ruga told me, drawing  directly from the wine’s ageing process. 

At one point in our conversation, I asked  Ruga about the energy that pulses through  the work, how he holds space for tradition,  queerness, and fantasy all at once. His  response was grounded in metaphor and  movement, but also something more  meditative. The figure on the label is rising  from a place of deep regeneration. “There’s  a transcendence of what the body is and  how it can animate itself as it rises,” he told  me. To express that visually, he chose to  include a St Joseph’s Lily emerging from  the figure’s mouth, an indigenous South  African plant that symbolises rebirth and  constant renewal. “What I wanted to have  as the cognitive effect of the work,” he said, 2017 Hazendal Prestige Brut Cap Classique  featuring Indlamu (2024) by Athi-Patra Ruga “was not just something that takes into consideration the history, but the awakening that  could be in the future.” 

There’s another pulse running through Ruga’s artwork. It draws from Indlamu, the traditional  Zulu war dance that gives the piece its name. Known for its footwork which includes  stamping and striking and traditionally performed by men in full regalia, Indlamu is a  ceremonial performance that holds deep cultural weight and is rooted in pride, memory, and  presence. When I asked about the inspiration behind using this dance form, Ruga opened a wider door.  “The outfit itself is inspired by the 1920s negrophilia moment,” he said, referencing the era  when Black performers like Josephine Baker and Féral Benga lit up Parisian stages.  “Josephine used to dance at the Folies Bergère, where Dita Von Teese now performs in a  champagne glass that’s rumoured to be modelled after Marie Antoinette’s breast. I loved  those feather skirts and I wanted to mix it with Zulu influences, like the coiling tails on the  figure’s back.” These tails twist like a dance paused in time, taking inspiration from tradition  and giving it a new form. “There is also inspiration from S&M outfits,” he added. “It’s a lot  of research and lifelong scholarship of Black cultural production from a gay, queer, femme  point of view.” What’s interesting is how smoothly he has pulled these threads together and  folded them into one character, one image and one bottle. You've got a South African war  dance, 1920s cabaret glamour, queer theory, and even elements of kink blended together. This  artwork speaks beyond the label, rich with personal identity, legacy, and intention. 

Five percent of sales from the Artist Series will go to the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art  Africa, and the original work is now part of the estate’s permanent collection. Even the wine  itself is rooted in legacy, crafted by Kiara Scott Farmer, the first woman of colour to win  South Africa’s Winemaker of the Year Award. She’s part of the new generation pushing the  boundaries of what a wine estate can represent. 

The next edition of the Hazendal Festival, scheduled for 2025, will explore the theme of  “Hospitality”. If Indlamu was about emergence, perhaps the next artwork will explore what it  means to welcome, to hold, to host.