Breathing new life into outdoor artworks — the 2025 Stellenbosch Triennale

The Stellenbosch Triennale returns from 19 February to 30 April, transforming the town into an immersive, open-air gallery. Under the theme “Ba’zinzile: A Rehearsal for Breathing”, sociologist, sangoma and chief curator Khanyisile Mbongwa gathers artists to create ephemeral works that honour sustainability, spirit and community.

The hope is that the Triennale, which opens almost conjunctively with the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (from 21 to 23 February), sets Stellenbosch as “a global hub for multidisciplinary art while fostering dialogue between creativity, society and the environment”.

In this year’s edition, Mbongwa asked artists to create site-specific works over 10 days, pieces designed to disintegrate or be repurposed, to minimise environmental impact. Daily Maverick caught up with Mbongwa ahead of the opening.

Zyma Amien - http:404 Not Found - The Curator's Exhibition (Courtesy of: Stellenbosch Triennale 2020)

Stellenbosch Triennale 2023, Outdoor Photography (Photo: Courtesy of the Triennale)

Cape Town-based curatorial theorist and sociologist Khanyisile Mbongwa. (Photo: Supplied)

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Daily Maverick: What criteria did you use to select artists for the Triennale: ‘Ba’zinzile: A Rehearsal for Breathing’?

Khanyisile Mbongwa: It’s a multilayered approach; some artists, I have been following their practices for years and this moment would hold their work properly; some artists, I have worked with before and I am continuing a conversation we began elsewhere; some artists, a result of me consulting with other artists and curators. But with all the artists, I did a studio visit/conversation about their practice before inviting them to participate.

There are other things we consider as well, the artist’s capacity to make work under the expansiveness and limitations of our scope (time, budget, site), availability, curiosity, etc.

DM: How do their works reflect the theme of breathing?

KM: Some works explore it through sonics and sound meditations by either engaging with wind instruments or composing audio installations; others use moving images and embodied practices as a way to capture how the body sustains itself in a breath rhythm.

Then there are those who explore it through abstraction, scale, form, aesthetics, plant life, architecture, archival objects.

What these artists make clear in all their approaches is the sacred sanctity of breath.

DM: How do you see improvisation, particularly through jazz, influencing the creative process and the overall experience of the Triennale?

KM: Improvisation is about reaching for one’s freedom, it’s speaking off the cuff, it’s to flow and trust that wherever you land it’s where you ought to be, it’s to surrender to your intuition.

But to do all this you have to have your base, a foundation, a stillness from which you can orbit from and return to — just like breathing brings you back to exactly where you are…

We are engaging with the creative process as a rehearsal, which means observing the sites and listening to what they can hold and how; considering each placement of the work in relation to the land, architecture, weather, signage, artists, visitors, producers, curators and how we all are in an ensemble of an energy vortex.

The intentional curatorial decision for artists to produce works on-site and not transport works from their geographical locations enters us into a rehearsal where they have to improvise with the resources that are available to them.

But also I enter into a deep-time rehearsal with my carbon footprint by improvising ways I can mitigate it through curatorial decision-making that is an attempt to align with the environmental needs of the world, my home…

DM: ‘Breathing through States of Duress’: In what ways do you believe the act of breathing can serve as a metaphor for resilience in the face of historical and ongoing challenges?

KM: Our lungs have sustained us in moments and places where staying in the rhythm of one breath is an act of defiance and aliveness. In an anti-black, anti-woman, anti-queer world, to breathe and want to breathe in the fullness of your being is not only a courageous act but also one of stepping into one’s joy.

The rapture that came with colonial, enslavement and apartheid violence of black and brown people stacked on top of one another in the hold of the ship across oceans; working in cotton and tobacco plantations in the Americas and Caribbean — and wine plantations in South Africa and later in the mines across Africa — are all states of duress where breath had to be sustained at all costs … to insist to live and be alive whilst doing it, in a world that knows how to kill you is Breathing through States of Duress.

When we fill our lungs with air and then release, that’s the metaphor — to be filled with something and then letting it go … to be filled with all that violence then choose joy…

DM: What role do you see the Triennale playing in fostering dialogue and reflection?

KM: As a gathering space, the Triennale in its formation is to foster dialogue and reflection — the question really becomes whether one feels the necessity to do that labour when they encounter the work.

DM: What do you hope visitors take away from the Triennale?

KM: Realise the sanctity of breath. Engage with our own implication with the current environmental reality. Acknowledge how historical violence and injustices are a direct precursor of this reality and its racial privilege … and maybe just maybe, make space to do the work to truly heal self and each other — so we can hold each other with something other than violence.

DM: Can you elaborate on the sustainability practices implemented in the Triennale, such as creating artworks on-site to minimise carbon footprint?

KM: Accommodation for artists is at Quivertree, an apartment hotel that champions sustainability. We produce almost everything in Stellenbosch, working with local suppliers, working with material that we can either recycle or that can disintegrate back into the ground…

DM: What is your favourite place in Stellenbosch to pause, reflect, or simply breathe, and why does it hold meaning for you?

KM: The mountains in Stellenbosch with imphepho [African sage, a traditional medicine plant].

DM: What’s a piece of advice you’ve received (about art or life) that has stayed with you and that you still go to today?

KM: “Define the problem big enough to include yourself.” — Judith Leemann. DM

This interview has been edited for clarity and publication purposes. 

The Stellenbosch Triennale is free to the public. Visit www.stellenboschtriennale.com for more information. Follow Stellenbosch Triennale on X (Twitter) @stbtriennale, Instagram @stellenboschtriennale and Facebook @stellenboschtriennale. Hashtag is #StellenboschTriennale #ST2025.