‘I’ve seen the zebra since this shoot – in a TV advert and then at a beach party. He has a life of his own!’

This image is part of my Future White Women of Azania series. Azania is the utopia I’ve created. Populated by a pantheon of recurring characters, it is the story of black queer women in South Africa. On the right, you have the Flower of Azania, wearing a costume made from 250 sunhats. The two figures to the left, holding sceptres, are the faceless abo dade (sisters). They have the ability to make babies, not by having sex with men, but by just thinking about it.

The rider is the Future White Woman of Azania, a character born in 2008 who I have performed many times. Here, though, we needed someone jockey-light to mount the zebra and in 2014 when I made his image, I was quite a big boy, so we went with someone else.

I come from a fashion background. Growing up, I used to buy a lot of magazines that I’d tear up, then stick the images on the wall. I always create everything from scratch – there is no digital post-production in my work.

I decorated the zebra a bit like a holy cow in India, or a Spanish horse, or a dressage champion, giving it sabre teeth

For this particular image I wanted to create a quasi-funereal procession, with pomp and fanfare. I decorated the zebra a bit like a holy cow in India, or a Spanish horse, or a dressage champion, giving it sabre teeth and custom-made accessories.

At first we were looking to get a live zebra and then, in a studio where I was having my body cast for a sculpture, I found this taxidermied one. Sadly, I had to give him back after the shoot. I’ve since seen him in a TV advert, and once, at a beach party. He has a life all of his own!

We sourced funeral wreaths from all over Cape Town – plastic flowers, porcelain flowers – that we then stitched on to nets. We turned the light down to make it cold and blue, and hung a large piece of chintzy fabric as the background. I liked that it looked like a cross between the galaxy and an English garden.

As much as my utopia is inspired by my own black, queer story – and all of my work is in some way autobiographical – I like to remove both skin and faces. I think people presume that they understand a person’s story just from their skin.

My characters are easy on the eye – they’re too cute to be true, and they jar with the title of the work, The Night of the Long Knives. People ask: “Why would you name your work after the Third Reich purge of the opposition?” Apartheid is inextricably linked to the Third Reich and international fascism. [Former South African prime minister and leading proponent of apartheid] Hendrik Verwoerd and the others got their training in Austria before coming back to South Africa to impose their genocidal laws. People were killed, arrested, displaced; there are still bodies that cannot be found.

The phrase also refers to the paranoid rightwing conspiracy theory that Mandela’s death would precipitate a retaliation they called die nag van die lang messe. Of course, when Mandela did die, this didn’t happen. This scene is both a procession and a pantomime. I wanted camp and sarcasm: “This is us, we’re about to go do a purge, can you believe us?” It is a play on that unfounded settler panic, because we’re not killing each other. We are steamrolling ahead towards progress instead.

This image has done wonders for both my studio’s bank account and for South African art. It’s part of the permanent collection at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. Seeing black children standing in front of it, looking up in wonder at a person riding a zebra, is a beautiful thing. The image stands two metres tall – the kids are right there with the animal! I want to embrace every South African under this one image and know there is no reason to panic. That is in the South African DNA: we are always hopeful.

Athi-Patra Ruga’s CV

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Image courtesy of Athi-Patra Ruga and Whatiftheworld

Born: Umtata, South Africa, 1984.

Studied: Belgravia Arts Center, East London; Gordon Flack Davison Academy of Design, Johannesburg.

Influences: Gcina Mhlophe, Cecil B De Mille , Credo Mutwa (Zulu grand meister and cosmologist).

High point: “Participating in the South Africa pavilion at the Venice biennale in 2013.”

Low point: “Low points are defined by how we react to situations.”

Top tip: “Do it all during set installation rather than tweaking in post-production. The craftsmanship is the difference for me.”