WHAT'S ON IN THE VALLEY
NIROX has a range of events, exhibitions, concerts, talks, and workshops available throughout the year.
UPCOMING EVENTS
NIROX Spring Jazz
13 Sep
NIROX Sculpture Park
Due to forecasts of torrential rain, we must regrettably reschedule this year’s Spring Jazz Concert to Sunday 13 September to ensure the best possible experience for our audience, artists and sponsors.
All purchased tickets for the original date remain valid for the new date.
For ticket holders unable to attend the new date, refunds are available through our Howler ticketing channel.
Kindly email support@howler.co.za
Gates open 10h00 on Sunday 13 September.
Music throughout the day, closing at sunset.
Weaving a rich tapestry of jazz with wind instruments
and the human voice:
- Umgidi Ensemble
- Nomfundo Xaluva
- Abathwebuli Trio
- Shane Cooper & The Spirit Whisper
- Modise Sekgothe
NIROX x ETHNIKIDS
AFRICAN STORYTELLING & BOOK DRIVE
26 Sep
NIROX Sculpture Park
Celebrating 10 years of Ethnikids
NIROX Foundation and Ethnikids have had a long-standing, successful partnership since 2017.
Ethnikids is a women-owned online bookstore that specializes in inclusive and diverse children’s books in all official South African languages. The organisation aims to tackle the literacy challenge in South Africa by positioning reading as a leisurely, pleasurable activity and providing opportunities for children and families to engage with authors and storytelling.
Saturday 26 September offers a relaxed family day outdoors with hourly book readings from the very best local authors.
The programme includes:
● Book signings by authors
● Children’s books available for purchase
● Book donations
NIROX Good Neighbours
25 Oct
NIROX Sculpture Park
GOOD NEIGHBOURS 2026 is a tribute to LOVE
connecting us across borders, continents, languages, customs and beliefs, honoring those that came before us,
forging a path for those that follow.
A gathering of African creatives and venturers,
entertaining, inspiring and reflecting on
sound, place and stories that shape our shared identity.
Produced / Curated by Tawanda Gwasera
with NIROX Foundation Trust
RECENT EVENTS
NIROX
I AM, WE ARE
Ubuntu as a living heritage
2 Sep
NIROX Sculpture Park
On Wednesday, 2 September, NIROX hosted a discussion between Justice Albie Sachs, Dr. Phokeng Setai, Khanyi Mawhayi (Zeitz MOCAA), and Ithateng Mokgoro (Yvonne Mokgoro
Foundation) on the subject of Ubuntu in law, art, and politics today.
Moderated by Sven Christian, this discussion draws parallels to Justice Albie Sachs’s “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom” (1989), in which he argued that, through “repeated incantation,” art as a “weapon of the struggle” had lost some of its elan and energy. This panel will focus on whether, over the past twenty years, Ubuntu’s overuse/oversimplification has created a similarly “shallow and forced relationship” between the term and its values.
At its heart is a desire to reinvigorate Ubuntu within the public imagination, drawing on its use by Justice Sachs and Justice Yvonne Mokgoro in applying South Africa’s Constitution; most notably in 1995, when Justice Mokgoro introduced the philosophy in the first case heard by the ConCourt. Centred on capital punishment, Mokgoro’s introduction of this philosophy helped bring an end to the death penalty in South Africa, opening the way for the recognition of indigenous values as integral to constitutional law.
The discussion is conceived as a bridge between “Spring is Rebellious: The Art & Life of Albie Sachs” at Zeitz MOCAA (curated by Dr. Phokeng Setai) and the forthcoming “I AM, WE ARE: Ubuntu as a living heritage” (curated by Ithateng Mokgoro and Sven Christian). It marks the first
public activation of “I AM, WE ARE” — an opportunity to preview artworks produced during a recent workshop, “Reimagining Democracy,” held in collaboration with Fine Acts and OWoN as part of their SPRINTS program.
The workshop was held in partnership with KuMo&Co and the Kromdraai Impact Hub. It will culminate
in an exhibition at NIROX from 19 September – 1 November 2026.
SOIL & WATER: KIGALI CROSSING
Community and Memory
25 Aug 16:30 (GMT +2) Livestreamed artist talk
Nyandungu Eco Park
This talk anticipates the launch of "Soil & Water: Kigali Crossing” (29 August). Co-hosted by Nyandungu Eco-Park, NIROX, and the Gihanga Institute of Contemporary Art, it features two of the most influential contemporary artists: Olu Oguibe and Ibrahim Mahama.
Oguibe is an artist, writer, and curator. His work helped pave the way for the recognition of contemporary African art as a key component in global artistic practice, on its own terms. His large-scale commissions and activist projects — such as ''Monument for Strangers and Refugees" (Kassel, Germany, 2017) and "Sex work is honest work" (2021) — often highlight the plight of neglected communities, helping social groups and individuals (re)claim their visibility through poetic, deeply affective ways.
Mahama has become one of the most recognisable contemporary artists in the world, not only for his artworks and installations — such as "Out of Bounds” (2015) in Venice, Italy — but for his ambassadorial role, where he champions the expanded role of community in contemporary art. Mahama is the founder of organisations that are active examples of what art can be if we take community seriously, including the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay Studio in Ghana.
The talk will be moderated by co-curator Johan Thom. An artist and academic, Thom campaigns for artistic initiatives, community engagement, and practices that exceed the expectations of the market. Currently, he is Professor and Coordinator of Fine Art (University of Pretoria).
Developed by Prof. Thom, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basak Senova, and the NIROX team, “Soil & Water” launched in 2025, with subsequent iterations in Kyrenia and Nicosia (Cyprus) and Vienna (Austria). Artists in Kigali include Paula Anta and Inma Herrera (supported by the Embassy of Spain, Tanzania), Herrana Addisu, Willem Boshoff, Wayne Binitie, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Benji Liebmann, Caroline le Mehauté and Eugénie Touzé (Fondation LAccolade), Ibrahim Mahama, Io Makandal, Diego Masera, Seretse Moletsane, Sethembile Msezane, Innocent Nkurunziza, Egle Oddo (Embassy of Italy), Olu Oguibe, Barbara Putz-Plecko, Alet Pretorius, and Johan Thom.
CALYCES
9 Aug
NIROX Sculpture Park
A collaboration between Kendall Buster & Siemon Allen
in dialogue with DearRibane
Titled Calyces Models (2026), the inventory of Kendall Buster’s paper- and foam-board sculptures on display in Natura Co-Lab offers a window into the speculative spaces of the artist’s idea generation process. They operate like sketches for an imaginary architecture as well as scale models for larger works, such as the 9-metre long, semitransparent structure that Buster and her partner, Siemon Allen, made for DearLand (located in the north-eastern corner of the park). Constructed from two-dimensional planar material that has been transformed into three-dimensional forms, the works also resonate with strategies for garment making, where rolls of fabric are cut from flat patterns and assembled to ultimately offer shape to a body when worn.
“There is an eroticism implicit in all architectural spaces,” note Buster and Allen of the larger work. “Once penetrated, they embrace, contain, shelter, or frame a human body.” Inspired by biological forms, this structure was “designed and built with accessible chambers, operating as both a presence on the landscape and a site of enclosure; a territory where animal or plant and machine might meet. Combined are
suggestions of a dirigible, chrysalis, cage, belly, flowering bulb, or shelter. The transparent agricultural shade-cloth skin links exterior with interior space. Low entryways and swelling interior chambers act in direct confrontation with the body through a dual compression and opening up of space to direct movement. At once seductive and threatening, the sculpture foregrounds the contradictory promise of
protection and the threat of a trap, offering an uneasy (uncertain) embrace.”
In response, DearRibane presents a series of sculptural garments conceived not as fashion, but as extensions of the sculpture itself. Constructed through volume, structure, and membrane, the garments echo the architectural language of Buster’s forms, translating spatial ideas onto the body.