NIROX has a range of events, exhibitions, concerts, talks, and workshops available during the year.
CURRENT
EXHIBITIONS
SERGE ALAIN NITEGEKA: LINES OF SIGHT II - BLACK SUBJECTS
The Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
13 April - 12 May
The film BLACK SUBJECTS (2012) came about as a follow up to 100 Stools (2011). I’d wanted to do something around asylum seekers at home affairs — the waiting, the frustration, the bureaucracy. I’ve been in those queues for years and the question has always been, ‘How can I intervene?’
For 100 Stools, I was thinking about hospitality. When you come to someone’s house you’re offered somewhere to sit, refreshments. You have conversations, you feel welcome. It felt like having people sit instead of stand in these queues would be a sign that although things are hard and the process is long, you don’t need to stand. You are welcome here. We are here to serve, physically.
BLACK SUBJECTS shares the same subject matter, but in a different context. The event has already occurred and is possibly perpetual, but this
process of building, coming together, finding a home — it never ends. These are people who fled persecution, crossed borders, become refugees.
They’re seeking safety. With BLACK SUBJECTS there’s an anonymity to the figures. You can’t tell who they are. I spent time in rehearsals to get the performers acquainted with the story. It was inspired by me moving from one border to another and ending up in this school.
NINA BARNETT : WATER - OPEN STUDIO
The Cool Room
14 April
While at NIROX, Nina plans to develop the paper-based works that form the basis of her creative practice PhD project about the Integrated Vaal River System: the anthropogenic waterway that supports Gauteng.
These works are integral to her interdisciplinary research process, acting as both outcome and prompt for thinking and writing. Working at NIROX will also allow proximity to the Bloubankspruit, a waterway entangled with human systems of value and waste.
This project is supported by the Ivan Karp fellowship from the African Critical Inquiry Program, and an Oppenheimer Memorial Trust grant.
UPCOMING
EXHIBITIONS
ABDUS SALAAM: INSAAN (HUMAN BEING)
Nirox Sculpture Park
27 April - 26 May
انس (Insaan), translates as human being. The word's roots are انسان (uns), meaning 'intimate' or 'love', and نسي (nasyia), meaning 'forgetful', defining the human being as both the intimate one and the forgetful one. This poetic fragrance is often alluded to by the mystics and scholars of Islam as it so poignantly delivers us to the essence of humanity being that of love, a reality the we often forget within our terrestrial, ethereal and Divine planes.
The body of work, made over the course of six weeks in residence during the month-long fast of Ramadan, ties this land and its hominid remains, the river and it's polluted state, notions of our global environmental shortcomings alongside intimate and personal moments. It asks if perhaps love - or the reminder of it, being the essence of our being and therefore our sanctuary across multiple planes - might ease the anxieties, tensions, and personal fears that we project outwardly into the echo chamber of forgetfulness.
This notion is spread across three spaces. Held in the Screening Room, Chapter 1 starts with water, earth and light, for we are embodied souls who'stranscendence is through our earthly experience and our planet is but a reflection of our communal state. Chapter 2 is in the Covered Space, with tones of the heart and time, where change is most true; and Chapter 3 is in the Residency Studio
CONCERTS
A Concert Celebrating Mothers with Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and a cameo guest appearance by Lira, Maleh and others.
Mother’s Day | Sunday 12 May
NIROX Sculpture Park
NIROX celebrates Mothers in the splendour of its impeccable gardens, with music through the day, culminating in a program co-curated by the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
Gourmet cuisine courtesy of the Epicurean Emporium, offering a broad selection of culinary abundance.
Bernie’s Bar will keep guests elegantly hydrated with bubbles, wines, and bespoke beverages.
MOM | A Concert Celebrating Mothers with The Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra