Meet Performative Installation Artist and Chief Curator at the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025, Khanyisile Mbongwa
By Thobeka Phanyeko
The Stellenbosch Triennale will be held in Stellenbosch from the 19th of February to the 30th of April 2025. The theme for the next triennale is BA’ZINZILE: A REHEARSAL FOR BREATHING. BA’ZINZILE : A REHEARSAL FOR BREATHINGUKU’ZINZA: an invocation from the Nguni people that speaks to being grounded, being calm.
Stillness as a mechanism for survival, as strategy for imagination, as Aliveness and Insistence. In a world losing its breath, where breathlessness pervades, we witness the tremors in our bodies and the depths we must dive to sustain life. This exhibition explores Breath and Breathing through states of duress and on-going extractions, using Rehearsal as a mode of Improvised philosophies.
Artwork to be showcased at the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025, Image: Supplied
Expanding on the deeply poetic and urgent theme, Khanyisile says, “It’s the tremor in the earth produced as the tremor in our bodies that inspired this focus – the world over has been deeply punctuated by ongoing conditions of violence… by violence I mean historical (colonialism, enslavement, apartheid), institutional and systemic, racial, political, gender and war…Every war and genocide has major impact on our environment – causing the disruption of ecological balance (water pollution, soil contamination, deforestation, loss of wildlife, damage to urban & rural infrastructure, air pollution)… This has direct impact on our capacity to breathe – and to sustain life in all aspects of its existance.”
Glamour: How does the theme of breathing through duress connect with the social and historical contexts of South Africa and beyond?
Khanyisile: Like many former colonies and apartheid regimes, South Africa’s social contexts are an ongoing condition of that violence – the past that reproduces itself in the present…this theme not only acknowledges breathing in those states of duress but also holds it with tenderness…to think of the plantations in South Africa (wine farms, mines), Brazil (sugar, tobacco), US (cotton), the Caribbean (sugar, cocoa) – to think of the hold of slave ship crossing the ocean – body on body, shackled – breathing in/on/through one another – thrown/ jump overboard … breathing in states of duress in the dismemberment, dislocation, dispossession yet attempting to find a rhythm to sustain ones breathing in conditions that render you breathless.
Artwork to be exhibited at the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025
Glamour: The idea of “rehearsal” suggests an ongoing process rather than a final resolution. How do you see this concept shaping the exhibition experience?
Khanyisile: As we prepare for the exhibition, we encounter many moments that require us to pause, circumvent, let go, revisit or circle back – we are working in the liminal space of nimbleness, holding what wants to be firmly held and releasing what has no desire to be here. The preparation and installation process is one that is expansive and limited – what we envision lives in the expansive space of imagination/dreaming and what is possible lives in the limitation of budget, space/site, skill set, access to resources, time and thus the rehearsal exist in the in between of that which is expansive and limited. Artists are pushing their own thresholds as they enter this rehearsal – exploring their own practices from this vantage point – being in deep time improvisation.
Glamour: How are artists engaging with the themes of breath, insistence, and improvisation in their work?
Khanyisile: Artists are truly magical beings who have this ability to crack things open in the most beautiful ways – they make concepts/ideas/words come alive. Some artists engage through embodiment, by working with their bodies as the first site of enquiry that insists on being here; others work with architecture as improvisation place, space, time, material, form; and others work with the sonics as a language of breath. These will be encountered through sculptural formations, site specific installations, paintings, short films, sound and sonic mediations. These artists form a constellation of Ba’Zinzile : A Rehearsal Of Breathing.
Glamour: You mention exhibition-making as a rehearsal. How does this Triennale push the boundaries of traditional exhibition formats?
Khanyisile: I think exhibition making particular on a large scale arts festival of this scale – one is always pushing boundaries of how to produce it ecologically… In our ongoing attempt to reduce our carbon footprint. We are not shipping any works from abroad or any other African country; artists are making works on site; we using materials that can either disintegrate back into the ground or can be recycled/repurposed; we consider the environmental and human labour involved in running the Triennale for 3 month – and interrogate ourselves about what kinds of lateral care is needed; we are free to the public.
Glamour: How did you select the artists for this Triennale, and what role does site-specific work play in the overall curation?
Khanyisile: The selection of artists is a combination of artists practices I have been following for a while; reaching out to fellow curators to introduce me to practices and artists unknown to me; investigating geographical locations I have overlooked in my curatorial practice; general research by attending exhibitions here at home, when I travel and reading exhibition reviews.
Glamour: Improvisation and jazz are central to the Triennale’s philosophy. How do these traditions inform contemporary artistic practices?
Khanyisile: Improvisation in jazz is the spontaneous creation of melodic lines; to play beyond the score; free-form; there’s a trusted centre which players improvise from and see where things go. All of this is based on trust.
When I visit artists in their studios, many share their affinity to music particularly Jazz. Sometimes if I am lucky, we have our conversations in the presence of an album or a playlist – the sonics/sound/music can be a thoroughfare for artists to shape shift into their divine self so they can go fetch the knowledge and return to us in this realm through their artistic expression. I believe the nature of making requires some aspect of improvisation – which in some cases is allowing the work to stretch you, open you up to pour out and in others to squeeze you out empty to you can be agile and nimble and attuned to your intuition.
Glamour: Can you share an example of an artist or artwork in this Triennale that embodies the spirit of improvisation and resilience?
Khanyilsile: Hmmm, I think it is much quicker to grasp this in works that are embodied … so Tuli Makondjo, Nandele Muguni, Sisonke Papu are artists who’s works one can experience the spirit of improvisation and resilience because of their interventionist installations that has aspects of activation in order to ignite the spiritual, ancestral, indigenous, historical as a thread interwoven.
Glamour: Given the global crises we are experiencing—from climate change to political upheaval—how do you hope this Triennale contributes to critical conversations about survival and resistance?
Khanyisile: That we are able to define the problem big enough to implicate ourselves – cause maybe, if we do – then we can see, acknowledge and do the work required (individually and collectively) to undo the historical and ongoing violence through the institutional and systemic structures that uphold them.
Glamour: The Triennale suggests that art is an 'infrastructure of care'. How do you see art playing a role in collective healing and transformation?
Glamour: Art has the capacity to create a space that can hold multiple narratives at the same time; it can create bridges to connect two disparate parts to form a whole; it can hold the emptiness, loneliness, betrayal that comes with doing collective healing and transformation work; most importantly art can be the space to channel oneself through a process that requires you to show up and be present for yourself.
Glamour: What kind of experience do you hope visitors will take away from this Triennale?
Khanyisile: That they ought to attend to their breath… In a wold losing its breath, where breathlessness pervades, we witness the tremors in our bodies and the depths we must dive to sustain life. It doesn’t matter who the world belongs to, what matters is whether its worth living in…
Glamour: How can audiences actively participate in this 'rehearsal for breathing'—beyond just viewing the works?
Khanyilsile: They can be active participants in their visit to the Triennale – sit with the works and listen to how their bodies are either triggered or ignited by their proximity to the works.
Glamour: Are there any special performances, talks, or interactive components that visitors should look out for?
Khanyilsile: Yes. On the 20th and 21st we have our talks program from 1pm – 4pm. On the 22nd we have our bioscope and embodied interventions program from 11:00 – 16:00. All these at Oude Libertas. On the 23rd we have a sonic meditation at Stellenbosch University Museum at 13:00 – 15:00. Check out our website for more information www.stellenboschtriennale.com
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