about
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projects
wherewithall commissions small-scale
curatorial projects that demonstrate resourcefulness, collaboration and an interest in revising institutional models for exhibition making in Johannesburg.
This includes workshops and discussions that support independent practices.
Event Horizon
Bulumko Mbete & Kamil Hassim
In Event Horizon diffraction gratings from an astronomy laboratory are manipulated to augment, separate and modulate frequencies of light. The optical effects generated by these defunct lenses are the basis of an installation realised by artist Kamil Hassim and curated by Bulumko Mbete that plays with the subjectivities and limits of perception. Using defunct lenses to figure the boundaries between ourselves, each other and the universe, Hassim proposes an expansion of our sensory capabilities with a view to enabling new forms of knowledge production.
Kamil Adam Hassim is a trans-disciplinary artist and musician. His work is expressed through instrument making, video, sculpture, digital art, sound, music, installation, performance and painting.
Bulumko Mbete was born in 1995 on a Saturday. She is a Johannesburg based artist and administrator with multicultural heritage who undertakes research through different forms of craft/design making.
Event Horizon runs from 17-25 March 2023 at
Constitution Hill, 11 Kotze Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
No Longer, Not Yet
Sihle Motsa & Mara Mbele
No Longer, Not Yet is an installation by artist Mara Mbele and curator Sihle Motsa, positioned alongside images taken by Mbele in various parts of Johannesburg. The project considers how humans have altered the natural world by developing infrastructure that cannot be returned to the natural world. In No Longer, Not Yet, dilapidated infrastructure and architectural debris are purveyors of both a profound intimacy and a haunting future.
Mara Mbele is a freelance photographer currently pursuing an MA in media studies at WITS. Their photography documents decaying buildings and socio-economically disenfranchised subjects. Motivated by a desire to portray counter-narratives that sit outside of narrow representational norms, Mbele's work functions as a channel through which to navigate their experience as a nonbinary person of colour in post-apartheid South Africa.
Sihle Motsa is an art historian and practitioner with an MA in Art History (WITS). She has worked as a sessional lecturer, researcher and writer, authoring texts for the Daily Maverick, Artthrob, Atlantica Contemporaries, amongst others. She is currently pursuing a second MA with the Department of Historical Studies (UCT) where her work looks at the semiotic, archival and temporal dimensions of African prophetic traditions.
No longer, Not Yet runs from 19 - 31 March 2023 at Keleketla Library! 6 Verwey St, Troyeville, Johannesburg.
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Taxi Diaries
Nonzuzo & Noncedo Gxekwa
This project sees Nonzuzo and Noncedo installing photographic images at different scales on the exterior walls of Constitutional Hill. The intention is to embed images taken in Johannesburg within the fabric of the city, sharing these with the subjects who are documented in their ongoing body of work, Taxi Diaries. Nonzuzo and Noncedo's collaborative practice favours the mundane and the everyday over the monumental. They are interested to see whether their work, which is installed along a commuter artery will be missed, discovered, or actively sought out during the multiple journeys commuters undertake in and through the city.
Noncedo Gxekwa currently lives in Cape Town. Her practice engages with collaborative forms of photography, individuals and nature.
Nonzuzo Gxekwa is a self-taught, Johannesburg based photographer. Her photographs contemplate the intricacies of a society reckoning with the past as it seeks to redefine its identity.
24 March 2023, Constitution Hill, 11 Kotze Street, Braamfontein
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Professional Practice Workshop: Artist Statement
Anthea Buys, Nyakallo Maleke & Tatenda Magaisa
This interactive workshop looks at the role and significance of the artist statement and / or biography in professional practice. Buys, Maleke and Magaisa will work through statements with participants, while also providing insight and examples of how such texts can be used experimentally, as an extension of an artist's practice, to create access for a range of audiences, to support applications for opportunities and as a means of directing the way in which work is received.
Nyakallo Maleke is a multidisciplinary artist and creative writer based in Johannesburg.
Anthea Buys is a curator and writer who, since 2009, has worked in institutions and independently in South Africa and abroad.
Tatenda Magaisa is an artist, researcher and cultural producer currently based in Johannesburg.
17 March 2023, edition ~ verso, Melville, Johannesburg
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On Collaboration: a discussion between Nina Barnett, Sinethemba Twalo & Sara-Aimee Verity
In this discussion, artist Nina Barnett, curator Sinethemba Twalo and printmaker Sara-Aimee Verity think through the conditions that enable collaboration within their intersecting practices.The participants will reflect on the conditions that enable and sustain collaboration in an institutional or organisational setting, between artists and within a printmaking studio. Foregrounding practices of listening and translation, the discussion will engage with institutional formation and the choreography and ergonomics of collaborative work.
Nina Barnett is a Johannesburg based artist working through drawings, immersive installations and experimental filmmaking to engage with questions of geography, infrastructure, materiality, and experiential knowledge.
Sinethemba Twalo is a Johannesburg based practitioner, currently an associate lecturer in the History of Art Department at the University of Witwatersrand and a PhD candidate in Art History at the SARCHI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg.
Sara-Aimee Verity is a Johannesburg based printmaker, she established edition ~ verso in 2015 which serves as both publishing platform and workshop for the development of print-works by makers across disciplines.
11 March 2023, edition ~ verso, Melville, Johannesburg
