Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency 2022

This September, Bodhi Khaya welcomed 11 artists to spend a week with us in nature to be inspired by and create from the land. Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency is a yearly residency FREE for participating artists. Artist in Residence South Africa, AiRSA, is the organising NPO behind it. AiRSA sends out yearly calls for applications and a panel of five artists/curators choose eight artists out of all applications received.(https://artistinresidence.co.za/)

Georgina Hamilton, custodian of Bodhi Khaya outlines the conceptual background:

“Bodhi Khaya is among the wilder places in the Overberg yet it has many wounds. In addition to its toll on lives and livelihoods, Colonialism introduced animals and plants that had an effect on the environment like biological weapons. A hundred and fifty years of cattle grazing spread grass seed throughout the delicate Fynbos biome. Fast-growing wattles from Australia were brought in nearly 200 years ago to stabilize dunes and feed a tanning industry. Today they are a significant fire hazard and “dynamic colonisers” of the Cape Floral Region. Their ability to take over much of this extraordinarily bio-diverse region is staggering and the focus of much hand-wringing and inefficient mitigation by environmentalists.

At this residency I hope the land will invite us to see both scars and the medicine as we sit on the tamed lawns and enter the wild woods, or keep warm by a fire of wattle. What is inside and what is outside?”

Bodhi Khaya Residency 2022 was held end of September, enjoy our introduction of the artists and their creations:

Bongumusa Mnisi, Cape Town

Bongumusa is a playwright and poet passionate about spoken word performance. However, for Bodhi Khaya Residency she chose to create a beautiful, deeply moving installation/performance “Into Me I See” in which all other artists became participants. She filmed her perfomance, the video can be seen here (link https://artistinresidence.co.za/2022-bodhi-khaya-artist-residency/)

Christelle Viviers (MFA), Johannesburg

“Central to my work is hUmaNITY, the heart and dreaming. My process engages a philosophy of harmonising binaries. Out of this thought I developed the concept for

X-ground:   a  6m x 6m installation consisting of ‘X’s made from two different kinds of plants / roots / leaves, which are tied at the centre, using soft grass.  The work speaks of our interconnectivity, our individuality and also our hUmaNITY.

Inga Somdyala (MFA), Cape Town

“I’m fascinated by the interplay of nature and history. My interest in place and identity has led to a tactile exploration through ochre, soil, clay or other natural pigments. In this case the use of land or soil can be considered ‘nature’, and reference to other symbols of national, cultural or political identity can be considered elements of ‘history’.
I buried a few large pieces of canvas at varying depths for varying periods of time at various places on Bodhi Khaya to expose them to soil, water, rock, light, sun and cold as a way of inscribing the surface with the land or allowing dialogue. I plan to return later to un-earth them and I might manipulate them further.

I also painted canvasses there and then with the wonderful pigments from Bodhi Khaya’s abandoned clay quarry.”

Kaldi Makutike, Johannesburg

Kaldi uses dance/choreography for storytelling out of an interest in cross culture identity, the body as the other, Black Psychology, Gender Safety etc and an arising research interest in Painting/Sculpture adaptation to movement works.

Improvisation practice is a crucial phase for him in creation as it gives room for movement

research giving each collaborative project it's unique approach and movement language.

At Bodhi Khaya he developed a choreography using his own heart beat rhythm (link https://artistinresidence.co.za/2022-bodhi-khaya-artist-residency/ to dance to.

Kagiso Kekama, Limpopo

“ ‘Reconnect, Cleanse, & New Beginnings’ is the title of my experimental performance piece, which is exactly that, the uncensored need to reconnect with myself after being diagnosed with breast cancer and after the necessary treatment.

The inspiration of the performance came as we walked about the forestry landscape of Bodhi Khaya, a sparkle was awakened, and exploration of the piece was birthed. I am a singer/songwriter with no performance style attached to it. The piece I developed is simply an offering of devotion, however with room to be improved & arranged for the theatre space. In the words of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, I believe “There are tunnels now in the soil of me, thin channels of recovery, a blessed loosening, and a gradual renewal. Its unhurried, but I feel the air, the rain, the life coming in”.

Kim Goodwin, Howick KZN

Kim is a sculptor working in bronze and weaving with wattle. Ove the lat 12 years he became well-known for his big scale artworks at AfrikaBurn.
At Bodi Khaya he created a woven work connecting two trees, which he called Poe-Tree (link https://artistinresidence.co.za/2022-bodhi-khaya-artist-residency/)

Leli Hoch, Stanford

Leli created an installation under the milkwood trees using as inspiration Herman Hesse’s prose on trees:

“ Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth…
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”

Sonya Rademeyer (MFA) | Alisa Farr (MFA), Strand | Wellington

The Bodhi Khaya Art Residency was a shared exploratory collaborative space for us.

It allowed us to challenge ourselves in terms of material (Mycelium) which we had never worked with before. In many ways, Mycelium became the 'third collaborator’ and a clear reminder that Nature can neither be coerced or manipulated.

We have been humbled by the process.

Tina Bester, Ladysmith

Tina created a series of dolls using different objects carefully foraged from Bodhi Khaya and created the landscapes of each doll through her plants and flowers, grasses and wet earth. Using light sensitive paint, the objects are laid out on the material, dried and the landscape for her body emerges. They are then stitched into form and adorned. She used organic matter along with other mixed media material, beads and gathered threads. The dolls that emerged are elemental by nature, beautiful, mythical, layered and odd.

Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Cape Town

Vuyokazi is an actress, poet and scriptwriter who studied Theatre Performance at UCT; her work fuses elements of physical theatre, contemporary live performance, music and storytelling to deliver impassioned and poignant social commentary on issues such as spirituality, cultural heritage, child abuse, peer pressure, love and various other issues.

“My work speaks to the importance of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the restoration of global value systems that embrace diversity without erasing the narratives of black people across the world. With this in mind, I use my poetry and short stories as tools to agitate for social justice. African Spirituality places emphasis on the role of the griot in reflecting the times and redressing the collective psyche of humanity. This is a vital part of my work, infusing song, poetry, physical theatre, ritual and storytelling to elevate the mundane into the realm of sacredness.”

At the Bodhi Khaya Residency she walked the land for days absorbing the stories the land told her, which culminated in a powerful theatrical performance that left her audience stunned into silence.