What remains through time, slowness and stillness

Oliewenhuis Art Museum

Mangaung / Bloemfontein

South Africa

Opened on 15 July 2025 by Ashraf Jamal

"Imagine a cultural landscape transformed, where construction is turned into art offering imagination, enjoyment, and social empowerment, and where recycled tyres become the foundation of a community gathering space."

what remains through time, slowness and stillness is the title of Sonya Rademeyer's Solo Exhibition happening in the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein/Mangaung. In this layered exhibition, Community collaboration and more-than-human kin (live snails) are viewed as equal epistemic partners. Notions of historical erosion and cultural erasure due to early colonisation are explored through the traces created by the more-than-human-kin.

The altar piece to the exhibition is the building of a Cultural Wall or ‘Meraka’ (place of gathering) within the sanctum of the Art Museum. The construction of the Cultural Wall uses post-natural and indigenous methodologies which include materialities such as clay and animal dung. Within the exhibition space known as the 'Reservoir' the opportunity exists for volunteers, community members and audience to co-create the Meraka.

Through deliberate acts of cultural decolonisation, dialogue is created between the Oliewenhuis exhibition space and rural Meraka Cultural Village which is situated on the outskirts of Bloemfontein. The exhibition attempts to decenter the urban Oliewenhuis Art Museum, essentially enforcing a bi-directional and fluid exchange with the indigenous Museum situated on Meraka Cultural Village rural Land.

A live-art performance will activate both spaces.

Visitors to the Reservoir will be able to enjoy a visual arts installation with video projections co-existing with more-than-human-kin collaborators actively contributing towards the evolving visual arts installation.

The experience of what remains through time, slowness and stillness exhibition is the creation of a cultural holding space.

At the heart of the exhibition is community-building, relationality, dialogue, and reflection through decolonising artistic practices.

Visit the website here

Phot credit: MyMalaik_Photography