Eco Spheres at JCAF until 7th December

JCAF (Johannesburg Contemporary Art Foundation Gallery)

They just get better and better. I’m talking about JCAF’s annual exhibitions.  JCAF [Johannesburg Contemporary Art Foundation] in ForestTown, was launched in February 2020 as a welcome newcomer to Jozi’s cultural arena. JCAF is both an art museum, (mounting carefully curated annual exhibitions according to a three-year theme), as well as an academic research institute.  JCAF’s first research theme, comprised three exhibitions addressing female artists in the Global South.  I missed the first exhibition Female Identities in the Global South in 2020, but I posted blogs on the second, Liminal Female Identities in the Global South 2021 and the third Modernist Female Identities in the Global South 2022. Research from this first theme, Female Identities in the Global South (2020-2022), is available on-line. I also blogged on Otherscapes, the excellent once-off exhibition in 2023.

Worldmaking: Ecospheres

The second of the three-year research themes is Worldmaking.  Eco Spheres, the first in this trilogy, opened on the 31^st May of this year with Structures upcoming in 2025 and Futures in 2026. Accompanying this exhibtion is a reader which includes information about the exhibition, details of the works shown, and several accompanying academic articles with additional research and relevant contextual material.  This reader (which I find quite opaque and unnecessarily dense at times), can be accessed in the new reading room exquisitely designed by Wolff architects. The overarching theme of Worldmaking refers to the way in which we make meaning of the spaces around us through symbolic practices; symbolic practices which include words, numbers, visual images, sounds and so on.  In many and various ways, the works on show at Eco Spheres make meaning of the pressing global issues of humankind’s impact on the environment, and offer sustainable alternatives to our current use of natural resources.

From humans impacting ON the environment to working in harmony WITH it

In the introduction of the Eco Spheres Reader, there is discussion of the Anthropocene era. This term refers to a geological era marked by the beginning of significant human impact on the earth’s environment. There is much debate about the start date of this era (Post World War II population growth and rise of the throwaway societies? The 19th C invention of the steam engine?  And even as far back as the agrarian revolutions 14-15000 years ago?).  And there is also debate about the validity of this term as a scientific descriptor of a geological era. However, even though in 2024 the proposal for the inclusion of the Anthropocene era was rejected as a formal unit in the Geologic Time Scale, the International Union of Geological Sciences  [IUGS] agreed that the term would be used in other contexts: “Anthropocene will nevertheless continue to be used not only by Earth and environmental scientists, but also by social scientists, politicians and economists, as well as by the public at large. It will remain an invaluable descriptor of human impact on the Earth system”.  This exhibition Eco Spheres aims to move beyond the idea of the Anthropocene era, moving beyond the dichomities of humankind versus environment, to offer new ways of thinking about how we, as humans. can live in symbiotic harmony WITH all that goes to make up the environment.  The term to signify this new era is Symbiocene, invented by Glen Albrecht to propose ways to live together with the envirnment for mutual benefit. Or, put another way. a period of re-integration between humans and the rest of nature.

Three Atmosphere rooms: Water, Air and Earth

Following the structure of past exhibitions Ecospheres is divided into three main rooms each one dedicated to an Atmosphere: Water, Air and Earth.

Atmosphere 1:Water

The first of the four works in the Water room is Ernesto Nesto’s Um dia Todos fomos peixes (One day we were all fish) 2017, a large scale three- dimensional work made of a blue knitted net embedded with aromatic spices. Walking through the internal space of this enigmatic structure with its network of root-like shadows, clambering “creepers”, waving “seaweeds”, and ghostly echoes of stalactite forms… “above” and “below” are melded with the presence of the visitors and their experience, intimately connecting us to the notion of the natural world and making us part of it.

Atmophere 2: Air

Air as an element has also been massively affected by human impact on the environment. With increasing urbanization and burning of fossil fuels, air has become polluted. With post WWII warfare, air has become toxic after gases have been released and moved, via air currents, across national and geographical borders (like rivers and oceans).  Spread of disease via airborne viruses was foregrounded during Covid. But air can also been a poetic metaphor for flight (bird migratory patterns .It is a life giving element.  And it has has been harnessed in useful ways for energy as in wind turbines.

Two of the four installations in the Air Room are Jonah Sack’s Thunderstorm Typology 2020 and Cloud Tower 2023.  These works can be seen within the context of the ubiquitous electrical thunderstorms that Jozi is famous for: caused by the rapid upward movement of warm, moist air which then cools, condenses and forms a cloud. These storms are associated with strong winds and dramatic cloud formations.

Atmosphere 3: Earth

The two-roomed section on Earth, features the importance of plants and soil in various ways through an exploration of indigenous knowledge, sustainable food production, effects of rampant resource extraction, seedling germination and much more. This section (where some installations have mutiple parts), is challenging and complex and without some background context can be very confusing. So read on before visiting the exhibition. In the image below on the left wall is the 5 part video installation showing dancers performing against a landscape of Ogoniland Nigeria, which is scarred by now disused oil infractructure. On the right wall is part of Russell Scott’s 250 studio image series which document, in exquisite photographs, not only the above-ground blooms of indigenous plants, but the below-ground roots, tubers and stems.  In the centre is the 5-part installation by Mater Iniciativa.

Virgilio Martínez, who, with his wife Pia León and his sister Malena Martínez, are the movers and shakers behind the world-famous Central Restaurant >based in Lima Peru. The Martinez’  ethos, loosely but succinctly put, is to cook with anthropology and empathy.  “A plate of food can never be more important than the traditions that make up their individual components,” says Virgilio.  This led to the develpment of  Mater Iniciativa, an interdisciplinary network which aims, amongst other things, to map all of Peru’s edible ingredients and their origins.

The 5 works/series of works included in the installation at the back of the Atmosphere 3 room are all part of Mater Inciativa’s Ecosistemas Mater They are:

1. Isabella Celis Muyus Seeds (Semillas Circulo) 2024: These 3 images resembling landscape contours are inspired by the topography of Moray’s archeological site near Cusco.  There is also a sound installation you will hear as you enter the Atmosphere 3.  I was frantically trying to turn my cell phone to silent as I entered the room until I was reassured by one of the guides that it was part of the exhibition!
2. Alejandra Ortiz De Sevallos Rodrigo Khipuy 2020: The rope on the right of the end wall is collaboratively woven from local fibres by women in Maras, Cusco
3. Bigo, in collaboration with Mater Territorio (Territory) 2024: The pockets in this landscaped base contain ingredients from the three regions of Peru (coast/Sierra/jungle)
4.  Mater Earthen 2024: On the floor on the right are ceramic vessels which hold food
5. Virgilio Martinez Alturas Mater (Mater Altitudes) 2024:  There are 4 frames of photographs of courses served at Central Restaurant.  “As Central’s concept developed over the years, a menu took form that takes diners through myriad different Peruvian ecosystems, categorised by altitude – from below sea level in the Pacific Ocean to the high peaks of the Andes. Each dish reflects the origin of its ingredients, from Dry Valley (shrimp, loche squash, avocado) to Amazonian Water (pacu fish, watermelon and coca leaf).”

And the grand finale in the 2nd section of Atmosphere 3 is a hyrdroponic garden of Phaseolus lunatus

Garrido-Lecca constructs a hydroponic garden of Phaseolus lunatis, a variety of a Peruvian bean plant grown by the Moche culture, a pre-Incan civilization. This culture is believed to have developed an advanced system of irrigation (between 100 and 850 CE), an irrigation system which is referenced in the pipes in this work. The beans of this plant are also believed to have been used in a system of written communication. Below is a hand painted mural on the wall opposite the hydroponic installation, laying out the beans of the Phaseolus lunatis as a from of ideogropahic writing.

More on exhibition access

The exhibition viewing is by appointment only and visitors are taken round by a guide which I find a little limiting as would prefer to go at my own pace with an audio-guide for background information. Or at least be able to wander around the exhibition to get an overview and contect before having the tour itself. Entrance is free and bookings can be made on the webste www.jcaf.org.za.  The exhibition runs until the 7th December so you still have plenty of time to see it.

Do not miss it. This is an excellent exhibition – challenging, thought-provoking and meticulously curated.