"There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.”-Khalil Gibran
Drawing from our curatorial statement “Salt” is at once sacred and precious. It is a mineral that sits on every kitchen table, binding and bearing seminal moments of community; and in the days of old, salt was essential to the shaping of empires. The nature of salt is multifaceted - holding the power of seasoning, healing, conservation and purification. Salt anchors the anima of oceans, carries the tributes of our tears, and serves as the mark of the proficient proletariat, exemplified in the adage “worth one’s salt.”
In this exhibition, salt becomes more than substance. It is a metaphor for the pillars of preservation — that of collective culture, memory, and truth. It is the crystallisation of resilience, the nurturing of joy and the disorientation that grief evinces about our aliveness. salt, such as the porosity of our watery bodies, moves between and through worlds - permeating both waterscapes and landscapes; its multidimensionality is found in its utilisation - opening rituals of welcome, cementing rites of covenant, and embodying an ethics of care.
“Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things. Love is the same way. Use it to “season” people.” - Vera Nazarian
Reflecting on the analogy of salt and love by Vera Nazarian, the visual arts, through its emphasis on the creative spirit, can be perceived as metaphoric seasoning of culture, which in turn does season people - through thought and language. Art, like the singular grains of salt, is only meaningful when it is not in isolation; when purpose emerges through the collective, rather than the individual. Similarly, art spaces ask you to contemplate what it means to bring themes tied to the human experience together in a single space; just as good soul food can bring a community together on a Sunday afternoon.
Prominent contemporary South African artists will feature in the exhibition, including Bambo Sibiya, Talia Goldsmith, Rober Slingsby, Andrew Nsthabele, Asanda Kupa, Toni-Ann Ballenden, Robert Wagener and Bevan de Wet. The thematics brought forward by each artist is a reflection of the raw beauty of resilience and distinctiveness, embedded within African landscapes, cultures, histories, and mythologies.
The artworks that will be showcased in this exhibition, are connected by either the thematics or the materiality of salt, hereby inviting us to savour life in its many intensities, in the realm of the logical and the creative, in the localities of the rural and the urban, in the mind and the body. Salt asks us to reflect on what we keep, what we release, and what we transmute. Just as Salt renders flavour, art conjures meaning; revealing the richness and complexity rooted in everyday being.
