Text and tactility: An archive of process

Text and tactility are the entry points to the SO | Academy’s Thinking in Poetry and Cardboard exhibition. It is words which lead you into the exhibition, pasted on the floor like a narrative map and moving along the walls, guiding you through the space. 

Activating the space is a series of audio-visual works. Poetry is spoken, read, and recited while a collection of cardboard works are placed throughout the exhibition – they are sculptures, rooms, whole worlds in miniature. It is a tapestry of tangible and intangible things, the textured and the textual, towards the core themes, provocations, and processes of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.  

Altogether, the Thinking in Poetry and Cardboard exhibition features cardboard models and short videos created through the Thinking in Cardboard Mentorship Programme led by international artist Sabine Theunissen, short videos from the Poetry Minute series curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu, and videos showcasing the poetry of Woven with Brown Thread, an anthology as part of the Khala Series | 100 Poem project curated by Upile Chisala.

The poems of the Woven with Brown Thread anthology were also key to the Thinking in Cardboard Mentorship Programme, with the starting point for each pair of mentees’ creative investigation being the selection of one of the poems from the anthology.

As such, the exhibition functions as an archive of process. Split across two levels, the exhibition brings into conversation the elements that have run parallel, or been central to, the development of Season 8 of The Centre – breath, mythology, poetry, language, translation and more. 

Up the stairs, and on the stairs themselves, more texts guide you to The Poetry Minute videos and the remainder of the cardboard models. Throughout it all, there is the tangible presence of cardboard, tape, film, layering and paper, complimented by the sounds and the visuals of poetry and language. It is an immersive and experiential exhibition, showcasing artistic work and process in equal measure. 

 – David Mann

CREDITS: 

CURATOR | Athena Mazarakis
CURATORIAL ASSISTANT & DESIGNER | Neo Phage
CONSTRUCTOR & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR | Cue Lighting & Sound: Barry Strydom
INSTALLATION ASSISTANTS | Buhle Xhegwana, Amy-Sue Lithgow & Lilly Oosthuizen