Stellenbosch Triennale tackles breathlessness and survival in art

STAFF REPORTER

Manyaku Mashilo was born in 1991 in Limpopo, South Africa, and is currently based in Cape Town. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses mixed media painting, drawing, and collage, addressing themes of spiritual identity, memory, ancestry, community and belonging. Drawing on inspiration from photographic archives, she depicts scenes where imaginary characters migrate through fantastical worlds between unknown places and rituals of shared belief. Mashilo’s characters are often represented through portraits set in abstract cosmological landscapes. Her scenes are visual stories that offer a plurality of imagined futures; piecing together mappings of time, place, space and making sense of a rich tradition of African spirituality and identities. PIctures: Supplied.

THE 2025 Stellenbosch Triennale, set to run from February 19 to April 30, will immerse visitors in the thought-provoking theme of BA’ZINZILE: A Rehearsal for Breathing.

The event invites reflection on breath as both a survival mechanism and a creative force, exploring how stillness, breathlessness, and the act of breathing can serve as powerful metaphors for cultural resilience, healing, and imagination.

Inspired by the Nguni concept of Uku’zinza, meaning to be grounded and calm in the face of adversity, the Triennale will challenge participants to consider how we navigate trauma and history while asserting our existence.

Through a series of art installations and performances, this year’s Triennale will offer a platform for artists to reflect on the relationship between breath, survival, and creative expression in times of duress.

Simphiwe Buthelezi is an installation artist and sculptor, who utilises traditional Zulu ‘icansi’ (hand-woven reed mats), glass beads and ‘tankrali’ (Zulu seed beads) to engage with the existential undertaking of “ukubuyela e masisweni” or “returning to the source”. Reed mats, leather, beads, metal compounds and cotton canvas are endlessly reworked, reconsidered and reshaped through her meticulous craftsmanship and the repetitive processes of cutting, folding, sewing and bonding. While the established conceptual threads of Buthelezi’s oeuvre begin in cultural dynamics and African Spirituality, her practice is grounded in a relentless exploration of materiality and form. For Buthelezi, these multifaceted, intergenerational objects are a continuation of what came before, and her practice of mending, reshaping and nurturing ‘icansi’ and ‘tankrali’ acts as not only a practical exploration but also a spiritual interrogation of material and form. Here, thinking & making are entangled activities, a combination of Buthelezi’s understanding of materiality, underpinned by her sensitivity to the traditional roles and practices that have informed her artmaking.

Breathing is a fundamental act: taking air into the lungs and expelling it, exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. Breath manifests in various forms: puff, pant, gasp, wheeze, blow, sigh, impart, imbue, transfuse, murmur, whisper, utter. Breathing is about continuing, persisting, insisting, remaining, holding, being present, and having a place. How have our breath been disturbed, disrupted and dislocated? How have we sustained ourselves throughout these interruptions?

Breathing through States of Duress: We breathe through the duress of histories of colonialism, enslavement, apartheid, wars and on-going genocides, wounded by its impacts and suffocating under its weight. Yet, we Insist, finding ways to Improvise our breath, our Aliveness, and our existence.

Boemo Diale is a multidisciplinary artist – currently studying for a Bachelors in Film and Television at Wits University – who grew up navigating different racial structures in Rustenburg, Mafikeng, and the suburbs of Johannesburg. Her works interrogate the inner workings of her child self that existed in liminal spaces between rural and urban. Her works reflect nuances of gender, race, culture, identity, mental health and spirituality. The works are often playful, a colourful exploration of race, gender, spirituality and identity as a racially ambiguous black woman.

Respiration: Breathing in states of duress and harm, ukuphefumla ngenxeba – to breathe through the wound. How our lungs enact somatic breathing by tracing the vascular systems of survival, cultural recovery, hope, courage, and strength in the quest to stay in the rhythm of our breath and thus life. Ukuphefumla – to breath, umphefumlo – the spirit, attends to a place of altered and interrupted destiny. The compositions of how to breathe in breathlessness are embodied in toyi-toyi, the southern Africa dance used in political protests or in voguing movements used in queer culture- the life that pulses in exaltation below our feet, opening a portal to Aliveness. This practice of breathing in situ, being in ritual with oneself, is a profound expression of insistence.

Rehearsal: A rehearsal is a session of exercise, a drill, a dry run, a practice in preparation for a ceremony. It involves repetition to align, figuring out interpretation, mapping pathways, and creating contingency plans. It is an attempt or experiment to reveal something about the world in near future time.

Improvisation, Jazz and the Black Tradition: Improvisation serves as a compass—composing, arranging, and executing without preparation. It involves off-the-cuff creativity, imagination, and skill mastery. It’s about creating rhythms and frequencies, composing notes from the haikus of our existence. Jazz, as a Black tradition of improvisation, is birthed from ancient traditions of wailing. This reappears through horn instruments that require deep breath, mimicking the throat as a vocal cord. Jazz embodies the mode of rehearsal as improvised philosophies, crafting compositions on how to breathe in breathlessness where even wailing is a form of breathing.

Exhibition making as a Rehearsal: positioning the Triennale as a rehearsal for the actions and changes we aspire to enact in the real world. This exhibition is a rehearsal for breathing — Breathing is holy. Art becomes an infrastructure of care, posing the question: if death is the given condition, how do we prepare to live?

Lindokuhle Sobekwa is a documentary photographer. He is a Nominee member of Magnum Photos and based in Johannesburg. Sobekwa was born in Katlehong, a township, 35 km from Johannesburg, South Africa. He learned photography in 2012 through participation in the first Of Soul and Joy Project, an educational programme for young people run in the township of Thokoza; the workshop was given by Bieke Depoorter and Cyprien Clément-Delmas. His photo essay, Nyaope, about people who use the drug Nyaope in the township in which he lived and beyond, was published by the South African newspaper Mail & Guardian in 2014 and by Vice and De Standaard in 2015. He joined Magnum Photos as a Nominee member in 2018.

Through this Triennale, artists say: “ We aim to map out pathways for Breathing by inviting artists to make works on site in Stellenbosch that attend to breath and breathlessness thus entering a Rehearsal as Improvised people. BA’ZINZILE: A REHEARSAL FOR BREATHING invites you to explore these themes, to engage in the practice of insistence and to find stillness and sustained breath amidst chaos.”