Through a wide range of materials – including soap, wool, and her own body – Siwani’s oeuvre pulses with her belief in the performative possibilities of everything, and demonstrates a vocational practice, unconstrained by mode and medium. Her body of work interrogates the patriarchal framing of the black female body and black female experience within the South African context. Negotiating our contemporary reality, iYeza draws on Siwani’s memories, journey and practice as an initiated traditional healer. Named for the isiXhosa word for (usually plant-derived) medicine, it is also a broader reference to “a substance that is meant to ward off dark spiritual energy” and call in the good.

As the artist explains, “These spiritual energies are intrinsic to my work and form the central ideas around the exhibition pieces, how our bodies and spirits are tied to the earth and waters on and in which we are born and raised. The land and water are healing on its own, it is medicine, it breeds medicine.”

With iYeza, Siwani interrogates the many forms and uses of plants in “traditional medicines, rituals and daily life”. With reverence, she considers the evolution of their meaning – understood, misunderstood, suppressed by colonial power and still enduring – and the ways in which they sustain us.

The life force of the exhibition, by leaning into this multiform and dynamic questioning, is the symbiotic relationship to and with plants, their meaning and our history. Through video and sculpture, Siwani physically presences the flora of the show’s title – using wood, imphepho, eucalyptus tree stumps, grass, alongside imbola, umkhando and soil as part of the materials that create these works.

Thematically, she considers the intersection of the physical and spiritual, women’s labour, ecological warfare, and codified African spiritual practices in an expansive consideration of the power and potential of plants, all while gesturing towards healing. As Siwani states, the exhibition is “a way to reset thinking about ourselves as indigenous people and our plants which have been sought after for years. This is about healing our spirits, the spirits of our ancestors and recognising the power in what our land has gifted to us so that we can heal.”.

The exhibition demonstrates the ways in which Siwani’s art is both a cultural politic and an emotional invocation, rooted in her belief in the importance of artists engaging with the socio-political environment. 
 

THIS IS ME

Venue: NWU Botanical Gardens Gallery (North-West University, Building H5, Hoffman Street, Potchefstroom)
Exhibition title:  THIS IS ME
Opening date: 27 April 2023
Closing date: 7 June 2023

The NWU Gallery will host the THIS IS ME Group exhibition at the NWU Botanical Gardens Gallery from 27 April to 7 July 2023.

"THIS IS ME" is a visual arts commissioning and artist development programme that is designed for recent graduates and artists that have been practising professionally for more than two years, and are living and working in North West (South Africa). It is a four-month programme that unfolds and extends subject matters such as identity, expression, independence and equality. It is an opportunity to define self, to create new works of art within the stated subject focus areas and to expand the artist's portfolio, professional profile and experience through mentorship, business in the arts facilitations and a group exhibition.

Featured emerging artists include: Tshegofatso Segotso, Rethabile Weevirs, KoketsoTube, Evodia Selwane Melamu, Thabang Rampai, Nkuly Nkosi, Goitseone Mokonoto, Amogelang Ngake, Laura Molokomme, Zawadi Mashego, Thuso West Modikela and Justice Wander.

This is Me Arts Commissioning and Artist Development Programme is designed and managed by female artist Amogelang Pila Ditlhale and administered by ArtbankSA and the National Museum. It is sponsored by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture and the NAC under their Work-based Experience Programme PESP3, with The Creative Mapping Project and Made4You Artist Residency as their fellow collaborators.

Contact details for more information and for interviews:

Amogelang Pila
+27 (0) 79 453 2275

Or contact the NWU Gallery

Amohelang Mohajane (NWU Art Gallery Curator)
Tel: (018) 299 4341
amohelang.mohajane@nwu.ac.za