Between Other Worlds and the Sea: A reflection on the journeys of KwaZulu-Natal artists at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2024

Between Other Worlds and the Sea: A reflection on the journeys of KwaZulu-Natal artists at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2024

By Sumayya Menezes

As a cultural practitioner hailing from the eastern shores of KwaZulu-Natal, there is, for me, a certain triumph in seeing familiar names and artworks on exhibit at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair.

Particularly, I was eager to encounter the work of three early-career artists whose practices I’m privileged to have witnessed. eThekwini artists, Nindya Bucktowar, Selloane Moeti and AlkaDass return to Latitudes this year after a successful presentation last year with the KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts (KZNSA) and I was intrigued to learn what each of their journeys has been since.

While creativity flourishes in the subtropical warmth of the Zulu Kingdom, the local creative economy is decidedly less robust. For artists and other creative practitioners seeking to build successful careers in the province, the landscape is challenging and many succumb to the pull of Gauteng and the Cape’s more established art markets. In KZN, there are no major commercial galleries for artists to secure credible representation, and funding to institutions like the KZNSA is too irregular and unpredictable to facilitate impactful growth for the provincial sector. When plans were afoot for an inaugural Durban Art Fair, local stakeholders were cautiously optimistic – an annual local art fair could be the focal point the province needed to encourage sustainable economic momentum and growth. The dream was, however, short-lived as the fair was ultimately cancelled and no new date has yet been confirmed. For the artists and art-loving communities of KZN, experiencing an art fair still means travelling outside of the province, and this does not seem likely to change in the immediate future

Orderly and relaxed, visitors to the RMB Latitudes Art Fair are at leisure as we queue on the sidewalk outside Shepstone Gardens, waiting for the tall green gates to open. Luxury chauffeur-driven vehicles pull up smoothly alongside, dropping off art lovers of every description at the unconventional venue on the slope of a mountain. There is movement ahead as the gates open and we step over the threshold, up the stairs and into the magical exhibition space beyond. Once within the stonewalls, an immediate consideration is not yet the art, but rather, the atmosphere. Shepstone Gardens is, unapologetically, not a convention center —the steeply sloping floors, uneven paver stones and myriad creeper-clad levels make for a veritable ramble through the enchanted forest housing the multitude of artworks on exhibit.

In such a setting, creativity takes center stage and is splendidly performed, with both artists and art appreciators playing their parts. Within the Centre Court, a red lipstick kiss lingers on the cheek of a man taking in a mixed media painting of two distorted female figures – Kay-Leigh Fisher’s ‘at the risk of being consumed by I &II’. Across a courtyard, up another steep stone stairway and through an ornate archway, a young woman stands thoughtfully before Heidi Fourie’s ‘Pursuit’; a large, arresting oil painting depicting a female figure scrambling up a rocky cliff, fleeing, perhaps, some invisible pursuers. The woman in front of the painting tilts her head just so; a few feet behind, her friend holds the camera and frames the moment. “Ok, now my turn!” The camera changes hands and another head tilts just so.

An art fair can be quite overwhelming to experience. A sensory overload: dense visual saturation with little pause to absorb or reflect on what is being viewed. Visual languages Lamour to be understood and moving from booth to booth, exhibition to exhibition taking in the creative production of more than 200 artists in the space of a few hours is no easy task. Stepping outside of the white cube and wandering, instead, down the Shepstone Gardens path brings a nostalgic charm and playfulness to the experience of viewing art, and, perhaps, a perception of accessibility that a contemporary convention center with its empty, soulless white hulls would struggle to achieve.

It is this notion of accessibility that I’m drawn to interrogate, as I roam the opulent marble exhibition halls, rooftop pavilions and gardens. As previously indicated, for creatives outside of the sprawling metropolises of Johannesburg and Cape Town, art fairs are still the stuff of dreams with access largely limited to artists with gallery representation. The RMB Latitudes Art Fair strives to break from this Mould. Latitudes co-founder and director, Lucy MacGarry, asserts the fair’s intent to allow all industry players an equal playing field, with galleries, alternative spaces and artists presenting side by side. It is refreshing and reassuring to see this vision realized to some degree, with work from superstars like Mary Sibande and Nelson Makamo in company with the likes of Bucktowar, Moeti and Dass.

For the latter three, participation in the inaugural 2023 Fair with the KZNSA sparked opportunities that brought career advancements. Bucktowar was shortlisted for the 2023 Anna Awards (an annual contemporary art award recognizing women-identifying artists from the African continent and the diaspora), featured in CLAY FORMES – an important Art Formes publication dedicated to South African artists working with the medium of clay – and awarded a SAFFCA residency (the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art’s prestigious residency programme, hosted at various eco-locations in the country). Moeti sold out at the 2023 Fair and amassed commissions for new work that kept her producing in the studio until February of this year. Dass has since presented solo exhibitions at Church Projects and WHATIFTHEWORLD and has had a piece acquired by the National Gallery. It is a full circle moment for these three artists as each finds themselves back at Latitudes this year with new narratives to expound.

Given her background in architecture, it’s apt to find Bucktowar's multidisciplinary work showcased under the natural light flooding the Glass Marquee. Collaborating with ceramicist Nicola Smith to present CLAYSENSE – an immersive ceramic installation – the space is ethereal. Bucktowar’s delightful ‘BLOM’ sconces (uniquely handmade ceramic lamps inspired by the universal flower doodle) are so at home in the whimsical eccentricity of Shepstone Gardens, that one would be forgiven for wondering if they’d taken root and blossomed there overnight. Dancing light beckons from a series, Light Form and Light Fragment, created during the artist’s SAFFCA residency at Witklipfontein Eco Lodge. Captivated by the play of light and shadow against a terracotta wall, Bucktowar spent hours tracing the speckles of morning sunlight, working intuitively with her signature ink and bleach brushstrokes to harness ephemeral impressions on paper that she describes as “a relationship between the sun, trees and the architecture of the place”.

Contrasted with these delicate works on paper is ‘True Grit’, a collaborative installation with Smith, owner of Johannesburg ceramic studio, Kilnhouse. Bucktowar is the founder and owner of Kalki Ceramics, manufacturing and producing bespoke ceramic tiles. With Smith, a kinship developed, or trauma bonding, as Bucktowar mischievously describes itto me as we chat in her booth. Each found in the other a support system to navigate the challenges of running industrial-scale ceramic manufacturing operations. ‘True Grit’ is composed of refractory kiln bricks tinted with cobalt oxide and inlaid with fragments from the artists’ studios which Bucktowar describes as meaning nothing to the world, but meaning a lot to the ceramicist duo and the ceramic communities each holds dear. Element wire and pyrometric cones are visual nods to the technical essentials of ceramic making, while the cobalt oxide represents the chemistry, but ultimately the installation speaks to the enduring memory of clay as a medium, and the perseverance demanded to truly master it. Bucktowar describes the bricks as presenting a naturally textured living surface, which holds true to the elemental nature of her practice, deeply rooted along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean.

Beyond the Glass Marquee is the Manor House, where Moeti’s haunting dreamscapes can be experienced in a group exhibition presented by Curate.A.Space, including respected South African artists like Thami Jali and Wayne Barker. Themes of purification, healing and spiritual displacement underscore Moeti’s practice, as she delves deeper into her heritage as a Mosotho woman to connect with her ancestry and trace her lineage. In ‘Khona abanye abazayo, sibaningi?’, a stirring diptych, a little girl stands morosely, afraid of where she finds herself and seeking reassurance from the regal figure beside her. Speaking with Moeti at the fair, the artist explains the scene – situated in limbo, the departed spirit waits, terrified, to be fetched by the Elders and reunited with her clan. In many African cultures, the soul is left in this environment of displacement if not fetched by the elders and will never rest in peace until this important journey is undertaken. In the physical world, this means the leaders of the clan travelling to wherever it is that the deceased body lies, be it Johannesburg or the far reaches of the wider world.

Moeti is passionate about documenting and telling these stories in her own voice, and depicts iconic, deeply spiritual female figures who fiercely defy and subvert the male gaze. The medium of oil painting is significant for the artist as she, trained as an oil painter, strives to narrate Black stories using a traditional Western medium in uniquely African ways. Moeti’s work is distinctive for her use of imbomvu, a red clay used for spiritual purification, holy ash and imphepho, a traditional South African incense — she explains that these are essential to communing with the ancestors. Further, the deliberate incorporation of these elements transforms her canvases into talismans, purifying and protecting the spaces they inhabit.

Above the crowds, in the new Rooftop Studios which were completed a few days before the opening of the Fair, INDEX features a collaborative piece by the Kutti Collective, a network of Queer South African artists of Indian descent of which Dass is a founding member, alongside Akshar Maganbeharie, Youlendree Appasamy, Tyra Naidoo, Saaiqa and Tazmé Pillay. The mixed media tapestry was created collaboratively by the six members of the collective, each in a different part of the country. The finished piece illustrates INDEX curator Denzo Nyathi’s vision of independent artists exhibiting in this group platform, negotiating one space together. For Dass and Appasamy, reflecting on the collaborative process, the development of the piece strengthened the bond within the collective. Rolled up and couriered from one member of the collective to the next, there is history and memory contained within the fibres as a result of time passed residing in each artist’s home or studio. The collective as one embraced and strove to harness the movement evoked by the consciousness of six different hands working on the same piece of cloth, seeking and drawing on connecting threads. Beginning with Naidoo’s palms covering the canvas with wet henna, Dass in her turn layered cyanotype transfers of archival family photographs over the henna abstraction. Maganbeharie drew on the piece with charcoal and acrylic, Saaiqa pierced it with acacia thorns, Appasamy embroidered and adorned it with jewellery, and Pillay created a sound piece that was installed finally in the space. Each responded to what was done by the hands before theirs, and the unusual process culminated in a rich tapestry of textures and narratives.

Dass’s ongoing excavation of deep ancestral connections endures; a multidisciplinary artist whose work is deeply concerned with considerations of memory and identity, in her own practice, the artist is still drawn to cyanotype printing, fascinated by the relationship with the sun and the resultant magical qualities embodied in the image. She elaborates on the parallels she observes when considering the unpredictability of the medium and the ever-changing state of the world and our planet; there is balance to be found in the minutely detailed technical process of preparing the print, and the necessary relinquishing of control during exposure to the sun.

For Bucktowar, Moeti and Dass, directions have changed course, mediums have evolved and been experimented with but a tactile and visceral materiality can still be experienced in each artist’s work as each probes concepts that are at once deeply intimate and personal, yet simultaneously universally inherent within the human experience. Each presents evidence of making as ritual, and as a labour of love – each is process-driven, favoring techniques that are deliberate, repetitive and slow, unflinchingly intentional. In the rhythmic mark-making characteristic to all three, the rolling hills of KZN and the mesmerizing waves of the Indian Ocean are present.

There are others, too, with roots in KZN. Inside an underground cavern, USURPA presents DON’T LOOK BACK, a special project interrogating new African narratives using new mediums. On slick white flatscreens, Sphephelo Mnguni’s ‘Thandeka’, a moody portrait of a female figure lit by the flickering flame of a cigarette lighter, broods next to Nandipha Mntambo’s ‘Labyrinth’, where the bronze minotaur negotiates its new digital maze. In the Centre Court, Ross Passmoor’s found material monotype prints (presented by the Candice Berman Gallery) could be viewed alongside celebrated ceramicist Astrid Dahl’s organic clay forms. In the Latitudes Centre for the Arts, Frank Nthunya’s inimitable burnished clay vessels (presented by Cape Town-based gallery EBONY/CURATED) were a striking presence.

 As I head for the exit, my thoughts are of home and belonging, and the call of the sea. Home, where the Indian Ocean murmurs Bucktowar’s name. Home, where family and community hold sacred depths for Dass and her practice. Home, where Moeti urges the next generation of eThekwini artists to keep pushing, work hard and make the dream a reality. For creative practitioners choosing to call KZN home, making the journey up theN3 to Johannesburg in quest of commercial success and credibility. Presenting work at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair is no small achievement. There is, after all, something to be said about how you inhabit spaces – and how spaces inhabit you.

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This article was produced as part of the ARAK x Latitudes Critical Art Writing Workshop led by Ashraf Jamal over the course of the 2024 RMB Latitudes Art Fair.

This article was first published by ArtThrob https://artthrob.co.za/2024/06/24/between-other-worlds-the-sea-a-reflection-on-the-kzn-artists-at-the-2024-rmb-latitudes-art-fair/

Writer’s biography:

Sumayya Menezes (b.1984) is a curator, artist and educator interested in the intersection between contemporary visual arts and education. She completed a BA Honours (Fine Art) summe cum laude at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg in 2008, and has since administered various educational and curatorial projects within the visual arts in Durban. Since 2014, she has been involved with the KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts (KZNSA), playing an active role in the management, curatorship and educational vision of the organisation.

She has written for exhibition catalogues and has been published in the Mail &Guardian Online (January 2019). In August 2020, she was awarded an Ampersand Foundation grant for her written contribution to Commune, the KZNSA's Turbine Art Fair virtual exhibition; other contributions include catalogue and exhibition texts for Strauss & Co, including Social Stances – George Pemba& Robert Hodgins (June 2021).

She is currently reading for her MA (Visual Arts) at the University of Johannesburg, researching tools for visual literacy in the contemporary gallery space, supervised by Prof. Alison Kearney.

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