WiN Festival: Hopa urges integrity to reclaim presence

She dug into the archives, unearthing stories that had been buried for centuries.

Thando Hopa, model, advocate and cultural leader, delivered a powerful call for integrity, representation and presence, stating that true social transformation begins when under-represented people refuse to be erased. 

Speaking at the WomenIN (WiN) Festival, Hopa shared that she learnt early that integrity was her compass. Wherever she goes in the world, she carries the lesson that her words must echo her actions and that staying true to herself is the boldest thing she could do. 

She says storytelling became her tool for reshaping how people see themselves. Whether through law, media or culture, she believes stories can expand the possibilities for those who have been boxed in by stereotypes. And as a woman with albinism, as a Black African woman, she knows she carries many histories within her own body. Representing herself means honouring all of them.

“So, when I started this journey, I said that I want to represent albinism in a positive way. But the thing is, within my body, I carry blackness, I carry women, I carry Africans, and all of these have a history of cultural representations in the media.

‘”And now, whichever project I started to choose, I started understanding that I’m taking all of these identities with me, and I have to take care of them in all the representational formats that I am in,” she said.

Hopa says she dug into the archives, unearthing stories that have been buried for centuries.

“So where I am now, with all the projects I do, I centre the work of under-represented groups. I look in the archives, unearthing all the stories that can make us better in terms of our cultural imagination but that were buried for centuries and histories. We need to unearth them and take them out.”

Cover photo: ESI Africa