There’s something dreamy about the theme for the Stellenbosch Triennale, which takes place across venues in town from February 19 to April 30. There is some mysterious factor in the concept of “Breathing” that makes one think of personal liberation in a time of mass conformity and global political upheaval. By Matthew Krouse
Curated under the title BA’ZINZILE: A Rehearsal for Breathing, the manifesto by curator Khanyisile Mbongwa is a call to action by artists who will create their exhibited works in 10 days only. It’s like 10 simultaneous art residences. It’s Mbongwa’s strategy to create a more conscious event. It’ll encourage a concentration on the actual location of the Triennale, the town itself. It will require resourcefulness on the part of the selected artists. Once the Triennale has ended, the art will be recycled or will disintegrate to minimise the carbon footprint of transporting art which, if you think of it, saves plenty on petrol, plastic and personnel.
The theme, according to curator, sociologist and ancestral healer Mbongwa, is informed by the Nguni concept of UKU’ZINZA – being grounded and calm. It explores stillness as a mechanism for survival, a strategy for invigorating the imagination, and an act of aliveness. “In a time when breathlessness is a global experience,” Mbongwa writes, “the Triennale positions itself as a space for reflection, recovery, and preparation for a different future.”
The brainchild of the Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust, the Triennale represents a further elevation for the town, from its profile as either sleepy and historical or a university hub. Yet, it is the inclusion of clever people, seeking out ways of getting the theme out to the town’s kids, that opens out the process into the broader community. It’s something that must go beyond merely parading little ones in front of art. But how does that dovetail with Mbongwa’s dreamy theme?
Mbongwa was the curator of the first Stellenbosch Triennale that was cut short in the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. Having made her mark, she was invited to be a curator on the Liverpool Biennale 2023, the UK’s largest visual arts festival; there she carried the vision of the exhibition uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things.
Mbongwa is a visionary, given to communicating using new poetic paradigms. For example, take her statement about “Breathing as Improvisation”, that she made at the launch of the Triennale in September 2024: “Breathing as improvisation works according to miracle rather than law – an eternity opposed to permanence. Breathing is holy. Art becomes an infrastructure of care, posing the question: if death is the given condition, how do we prepare to live?” You get the idea: people need to breathe through their crises in order to just live – that’s my interpretation anyway.
Work has started on reaching out to the youngsters of Stellenbosch, to include them in the theme, which is quite a curious aspect of proceedings. The beginning point is clear: that the Stellenbosch Triennale needs to go up and down the cultural food chain of the town, and that includes little learners. Project Director and Founding Trustee Andi Norton works the programme on behalf of the Triennale; and it’s beginning point is childhood PTSD. “People used to think that trauma came from a particular incident, an attack or a mugging,” Norton says. “What comes out of research is that trauma is actually a buildup of chronic stress, from an environment in which children live leads to trauma around food insecurity, poverty just wondering if there’s enough money to pay the rent. Children are living with drip-drip stress.” That’s not exactly fine art fare, but it does make some sense, in terms of beginning to think of art-based workshops around Mbongwa’s theme of “A Rehearsal for Breathing”.
The actual programme is created by Stellenbosch academic Dr Paseka Blessing Chisale: lecturer, artist, and research supervisor. He conducts a “Spaces and Place and Belonging” initiative with his Creative Arts students. Chisale’s research explores creative arts teacher-education, arts-based research, and self-study methodologies, emphasising innovative thinking and interdisciplinary approaches.
Chisale speaks on behalf of this important Stellenbosch Triennale initiative called the Arts-Based Inquiry Initiative, funded by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund. He works with teams of facilitators, as well as a renowned colleague Francis Esterhuizen, who Norton describes as a “qualified art therapy facilitator and social worker.
“We are going to engage in all four art forms,” Chisale says about the process. “We are going to explore learners’ pasts. We are looking at how they view themselves, using the materials we provide them with, in the art education programme.
“We are going to allow them to explore the space around them, and they can find materials that they can use to create their artworks. Exploring music, we will be playing around with body percussions, with learners creating their own musical instruments from found materials. And we will also do theatre productions.”
“The idea here is for them to be working in groups, in collaboration with each other, to just try and solve problems together. It is essentially to give them a space to be creative, a space to play but also giving them a space for healing.
“We are not necessarily using it as a space for therapy, but it is a space where learners can essentially recapture their creativity. In many ways when learners grow older the education system becomes very limited in how learners go about exploring their creativity. It’s often based on following a specific route to get to the answer. But here we are trying to create a space where the learners can actually make mistakes. They are using the space as a rehearsal space, to just play around, and they have the license to make mistakes and to learn from those explorations and that experimentation,” Chisale said.
This is how Chisale and his team will interpret Mbongwa’s theme BA’ZINZILE: A Rehearsal for Breathing for 30 fortunate youngsters.
This article was first published in the Sunday Times.