Tanya Poole 07.12.2018 — 27.04.2019
To listen to ‘ The Whispering Spring ’ audio piece that is installed with the exhibition, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUYSvQ9dm1Y
PART 1: THE SILENT SPRING & THE WHISPER NETWORK The Silent Spring In 1962, Rachel Carson published a book titled ‘The Silent Spring’. In this book she examines the impact of the insecticides and pesticides that were/are used by famers to kill off insects and threats to the mass production of crops. Carson presented research that shows just how detrimental these chemicals are to both the eco-system and the human body. Her findings eventually resulted in the banning of DDT and played a significant role in launching the environmental movement in America. This is one of the key texts that influenced Poole’s conceptualisation of ‘The Whispering Spring’ and its title.
In the introduction to ‘The Silent Spring’, Linda Lear (2002: xvi) tells us why the author is so highly regarded in the area of environmental science:
“Carson’s concept of the ecology of the human body was a major departure in our thinking about the relationship between humans and the natural environment. It had enormous consequences for our understanding of human health as well as our attitudes to environmental risk. ‘The Silent Spring’ proved that our bodies are not boundaries. Chemical corruption of the globe affects us from conception to death. Like the rest of nature we are vulnerable to pesticides; we too are permeable. All forms of life are more alike than different”.
Linda Lear explains that Carson’s hometown was situated in the Pittsburgh area which became a site of mass iron and steel production shortly after the second industrial revolution. Lear (2002: xiii) describes the way in which the small town of Springdale turned into a “grimy
wasteland, its air fouled by chemical emissions, its rivers polluted by industrial waste” and run-off from the two coal -fired electric plants situated on either side of it.
In the first chapter of ‘The Silent Spring’, Carson tells a fictitious short story about a small American town that boasted rich farms that yielded huge numbers of crops. One day a strange “sickness” began to spread across the town. The sheep and cows died from illness and ceased to make any sounds. The apple trees blossomed but there was no sound of the insects or birds that are needed to pollinate them. The town was now silent in spring because human beings have poisoned it through the misuse of chemicals in their farming. A few pages later Carson makes a grim but true statement: “Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central
problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm — substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends” (Carson 2002 (1962): 8).
Two years after the book was published, Carson died of breast cancer. ‘The Whispering Spring’ by Tanya Poole pays homage to Rachel Carson and the other seven female scientists depicted in the exhibition who are working in line with Carson’s legacy and philosophy towards the environment. Poole shares their views and the scientists have served far more significant roles besides allowing her to paint their portraits. Carson was never awarded a PhD in environmental science. She came from a background of writing and working
in Marine Biology, yet her determination to understand a problem powered a brilliant piece of research in a subject she was not formerly trained in. She took a seemingly mysterious and complex problem and put it into a language that everyone could understand.
The continued use of DDT in South Africa may well produce our own “Silent Spring”. Poole’s closest friend is one of the researchers depicted in the portraits, Alex Holland. Holland is an entomologist and a Trichoptera Taxonomist and her doctoral research involved the use of DDT in South Africa and its impact on water quality and therefore humans and wildlife in areas affected by it (Poole 2018). While DDT has been banned in most parts of the world including the USA, it is still used in a small number of other countries including South Africa. The United States of America may have banned the use of the chemical inside its own country, but it has not India and China both export DDT to countries in Africa, either as technical product or as a formulation, for the purpose of vector control. DDT is being formulated in Ethiopia and South Africa with ingredients imported from China. South Africa exports some of its formulated product to other countries in Africa. For further discussion see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2801202/ 1
banned the manufacturing of it and the exporting of it to other countries (Poole 2018). South Africa is one of the countries that not only purchases DDT from countries like the USA, but we also manufacture it here ourselves.1
The Whisper Network During the #metoo2 campaign of 2017, Poole came across the concept of the “Whisper Network”. A Whisper Network refers to private informal conversations, also referred to as “gossip”, that take place between women about men who may be considered sexual predators in the immediate surrounds. The Whisper Network conveys information from one women to another about men who need to be monitored and observed because of allegations or suspicions of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and sexual assault. It is a way in which women protect The #metoo movement is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual violence that developed in 2006 but gained traction in October 2017 as women in high powered industries or with a high public profile joined the movement as it spread virally via social media in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. 2
themselves, often within institutional and high powered spaces without being unfairly persecuted and punished. 3
In his discussion of the “cognitive revolution” that took place approximately 70 000 years ago, Yuval Harari refers to “gossip theory” (2011: 23-26). In his book Harari (2011: 23-26) presents different theories that explain why modern Homo Sapiens developed the ability to gossip and share complex and important information within groups.4 “According to this theory Homo sapiens is primarily a social animal. Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction. It is not enough to know the whereabouts of lion and bison. It’s much more important for them to know who in their band hates whom, who is sleeping with whom, who is honest and who is a cheat”. it is an unfortunate reality that a majority of sexual assault and rape cases globally go unreported or un prosecuted and so women find themselves in a lecture theatre or the workplace with their perpetrators. There are various reasons for this although the stigma and misunderstanding of rape plays a significant role in the few numbers of cases that are actually reported, not to mention the 3
Gossip is condemned socially as indicative of jealousy and a mean character despite the fact that it is an essential part of social interaction and social bonding. Gossip is also framed as a negative pastime of women, yet this is one way in which women communicate and attempt to convey important messages to one another about particular threats in the immediate environment. According to Harari (2011: 23-26), gossip was used by modern Homo Sapiens as a co-operative tool to bring individuals together and unite them in a cause or central goal. Gossip is one way to spread an important message very quickly.
Poole’s title ‘The Whispering Spring’ could easily be misinterpreted as pretty, working in the vein of artists who celebrate the beauty of the natural world without feeling compelled to examine the more sinister disturbing and complicated narratives that lie beneath its surface. In this instance “whispering” refers to the Whisper post traumatic stress caused by an incident of rape. Under these circumstances women warn each other to take care around certain men. 4 Harari discusses “gossip theory” and places it in context in Chapter two on pages 23-28. For further reading see Harari, Y. 2011. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage Books
Network which is a complex social phenomenon. Women need to protect themselves, especially from powerful men by sharing information under the radar, when ideally they should be able to vocalise their experiences of sexual abuse and harassment in the open. Our current social power dynamics and configurations mean that whisper networks continue to be one of the primary ways that women protect themselves when they should have the power to take action against their perpetrators.
new era of social justice for all who share our planet. The use of the word spring in the title can be interpreted as a reference to the possibility that we may eventually lose spring along with summer and autumn. If as humans we continue on our current capitalistic trajectory we may find ourselves caught in an eternal winter. Not the kind that lies dormant waiting to burst forth in the spring with new life. This is the kind of barren desert winter where nothing can survive and from which nothing can be born.
In Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape we have a very serious epidemic of sexual violence, only some of which is slowly being vocalised.5 Thus the ‘whispering’ Poole is referring to is not only the comforting sound of leaves rustling and bees buzzing, whispering in the hope of a new ‘spring’. The whispering in Poole’s title is about the need for communities of women (and men) to work together as we attempt to usher in a In 2016, Rhodes University (where Tanya Poole was lecturing in painting at the time) became a site of trauma, anger, tension and student protest. An anonymous student leaked a list of students who had been accused of rape or had actually confessed to rape and were pending action from the University which resulted in the 5
students engaging in protest about the lack of action taken by the University to protect women who had been sexually assaulted on campus.
Where everything better is waiting in another place (Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Stay’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
PREVIOUS: detail of Summer is a small fortune
2018
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Liquid Sunshine’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
Ancient Codes
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘A Human Encounter’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
Still and want for nothing
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Poof goes my oppressive ego’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
Summer is a small fortune
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Liquid Sunshine’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
Mysterious Signals
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Treasures Overlooked’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 200 x 150 cm
Into the soft season
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Kitchen in my religion’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 200 x 150 cm
Wood soaked and sweetened
2018
(Title courtesy of Nomzi Kumalo from her poem ‘Inside Autumn’) Kandahar ink and ground pigment on Fabriano paper 150 x 200 cm
PART 2: COLONIAL RESIDUES AND POST-COLONIAL FUTURES: THE RESEARCHERS, THE TREES AND THE INSECT SWARMS
“It is all connected. Everything. You, me, the trees, the researchers and the swarms. We all evolve together and we will die without each other“ (Poole 2018).
We exist in an age that is all about connection and disconnection. We have technology that tells us we are “connected” through email, Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype and other such applications. We are also able (provided one is wealthy) to travel anywhere in the world (in less than a few hours in some cases). On the other side of this, we are completely disconnected. We are disconnected in terms of our relationships with other human beings and our relationships with the environment that shelters and sustains us. We are also disconnected from our histories and our pasts, the stories and narratives that make us who we are and define the world around us, Gondwana refers to the supercontinent that existed before we broke up slowly into the separate continents we know today. It spanned from the Neoproterzoic (about 550 million years ago) until the Carboniferous age (about 320 million years ago). 6
we are even more disconnected from the future, tending to think the world that we live in will continue to be there irrespective of how we behave in the present.
Earlier this year Poole was invited to assist on a fieldwork trip to Sutherland with Rose Prevec, a Paleobotanist, Aviwe Matiwane who is also a Paleobotanist and Alex Holland, a Trichoptera Taxonomist. Prevec studies the Permian-aged (300-250 million year old) plants of Gondwanaland,6 particularly the Glossopteris which is the ancient tree that most of South Africa’s coal comes from. Aviwe Matiwane is a PhD student and this trip was arranged for her to do fieldwork for her paleobotanical and biostratigraphic project. Poole describes the sense of bridging time and space through the experience of traveling back in time with the
scientists to when the continents were all one continent. In describing the spatio-temporal dimensions of the work, Poole (2018) makes the following statement: “‘The Whispering Spring’ exists in the dimension of time too. That’s so important, because it really is about the future — it’s a proposal for ways of working and researching and making and connecting going forward. The fact is that we can imagine our Utopias, and we should. And what can help us imagine the future is to know about the past.”
She also expresses an intensified love and fascination for the world of insects and plants and insect-plant interactions in terms of their relevance to our past and our future. In particular the way in which they co-evolve together. Prevec, Matiwane and Mbunge assisted in the process of educating Poole about these insect/plant relations. There is also an intergenerational element to the network that Poole has nurtured. Her daughter Sophie is 17 and during her school breaks worked with Khokela Camagu, a fossil excavator and preparator who works at the Albany Natural Museum where Poole would
regularly visit and be taken on tours of the various collections. Out of two paleontology trips, two freshwater ecology trips and numerous visits to the Albany Museum and the Botanical Gardens, Poole selected three subjects: seven female researchers, a selection of trees from the Botanical Gardens and a selection of different species of bees.
The Researchers The title of each of the seven portraits is the researcher’s name and profession. Each of these women is engaged in scientific research that revolves around relationships and information derived from trees and insects. Poole spent months observing their work and participating in activities with them when invited. In fact, her method could be described in anthropological terms as “hanging out”, a self-descriptive name for a form of participant observation where the researcher does not have any rigid requirements but is open to any possible direction the research may take them and essentially spends as much time immersed in the field as possible. The most important method to this research is simply that one relinquish a specific agenda and just “hang out” with a group of people while they
work (depending on the nature of the study). Rogers (2004: 48-49) argues that “hanging out is a relevant, important and ethically desirable research method”, partly because it keeps channels of communication open for local and global voices to be heard “without claiming to definitively represent them”. This is also an interesting twist on the idea of the Anthropologist observing a group of humans in their “natural setting”. The scientists are observing rocks, trees and insects; Poole is observing them as they do their research. They are also observing her as she researches and represents them and their work.
Anthropologists and scientists were some of the most powerful weapons employed by colonialists when they arrived in Africa and started to take out the intellectual, powerful and resource rich members of African communities. If you want to destroy a community, get rid of the intellectuals. Anthropology served the purpose of colonisation perfectly. Indigenous people were classified along with flora and fauna in certain parts of Africa and the Global South (Tuhiwai Smith 1999: 19). Anthropologists classified and labelled indigenous people as “savages” and “barbarians” who had no “culture” or “morals” which then justified the way that political figures
and colonial leaders treated the people who were already living in the areas desired by the influx of new settlers to the continent (Tuhiwai Smith 1999:20). Human beings became specimens and subjects for experimentation and exploitation. If you can “name and classify” something you can “separate” it from other things, preventing subjects from communicating and cohering as a whole before “aestheticising” that process of separation and classification as “other”. “Aestheticising” in the way that Nicholas Mirzoeff (2011:3-4) uses it in this instance is not about making things beautiful, but about rendering them normal, part of the everyday.
In order to claim and colonise land, Colonialists needed to know who the people of the land were and how they lived their lives. They also needed to know about the climate and geography of the land, about the kind of fish in its oceans and fresh water, what insects and trees existed there and what time of year the rain fell.
Botanists were instrumental in creating interest in foreign flora during the age of European colonial expansion. Botanical Gardens are situated around the South African landscape
including within Grahamstown. They are their own “slightly forced ecosystem�, created by bringing plants from different places and planting them together in one closed location (Poole 2018). While the Grahamstown botanical gardens are lovely, they are also the product of colonial and imperial domination. The garden is not a naturally occurring ecosystem yet the trees continue to grow and the insects are certainly not silent. At the same time it is the possessive nature of a garden like this that is problematic. The culture of conquering and collecting beautiful objects, ideas and people to own and display as evidence of wealth and power without any care taken for its authors, owners or generators is distinctly colonial.
There are some interesting subversions of imported colonial practices such as the Western construct of the scientist embedded in the exhibition. Traditionally a white male profession, the concept of the scientist in a traditional western sense was brought to South Africa with imperialism and colonialism and remained a white
male legacy until very recently. The researchers depicted in the portraits have all had to work hard to find their way within a discipline that has tried to exclude them and their ways of thinking and being in the world. The researchers have not assimilated in the sense of taking on the same character and culture as their white male predecessors, instead they have taken ownership of these legacies and histories and intend to use them in a method that suits them.
In 2017 I participated in a publishing workshop in Uganda. One of the aspects of the visual language I really appreciated in Kampala had to do with the way that the shop owners and attendants had edited the mannequins. The mannequins are the typical shapeless version of a white woman seen all over the world. Assessing these mannequins, they had decided to make them look a little bit more like a Ugandan woman might. They did this by attaching stuffing around the hips using fabric and clothing to keep it intact. Others had taken the time to bend metal containers and adhere them to the mannequin to stretch out the
fabric of the clothing to exaggerate the hips and buttocks. I like this spatial intervention because it speaks of a type of claiming and adjusting of something foreign to suit ones needs. In one way this kind of imaginative claiming can be seen in light of ‘The Researchers’ and the way in which they have taken ownership of their discipline and started to include other forms of indigenous knowledge, while editing out the undesirable destructive elements.
Every individual in each of the portraits directs their gaze at the viewer, except for one. Khokela Camagu. Camagu looks upwards as if she is facing the future with her gaze. Looking at the portraits, one is reminded of one of the traditional functions of painting prior to the invention of the camera: namely to record the portraits of important people. Primarily royalty and nobility and of course “significant” white men. In painting the portraits of the female researchers on a relatively large scale (a technical challenge in ink),7 Poole is raising the researchers to a status Of course many artists do work on a large scale with inks, but it is less common than seeing oil painting on a large scale. This is at least in part because it is easier to control the ink and the paper on a smaller scale. When one works with water and ink on a large piece of paper, the paper can warp slightly and the behavior of the ink is harder to manipulate. 7
of “important”. These women will live forever (or until the artwork fades) as significant individuals whose contributions to the environmental movement warrant honouring.
The Trees The botanical garden is a “slightly forced ecosystem”, imported from elsewhere. It is not indigenous to this part of the Eastern Cape, yet the people who live here have taken ownership of it (Poole 2018). It is by no means a democratic claiming of the space. It is messy and complicated. In reproducing trees from the botanical gardens in Makhanda, Poole takes ownership of them and their legacy, and uses them to create the canopy of an imaginary future for ‘The Whispering Spring’.
In the first few pages of the catalogue you will see photographic reproductions of the paintings of trees collectively titled ‘The Edge of the Forest’.
Dark pools of ink transform into lightly worked greys, disappearing into almost whites. The decision to work in this medium is part circumstantial and part deliberate. Poole explains how she tore a ligament in her shoulder a few years ago in a Karate demonstration and could not paint in oils on a large scale as she had previously done, and so found herself making small ink drawings. Her manipulation of the medium has developed since then and acquired its own meaning within her practice.
She argues that oil is a seductive medium. You can draw the viewer in through colour and have the control to create a perfectly representational painting. Ink on the other hand, is defiant. Sometimes it does what you want it to do, but other times it behaves as it pleases. It is impossible to build up the surface in the same way that one can with an oil painting to create additional dimensions to the surface. It is an honest medium: once you have made your mark on the paper, it is there forever.
There is a monumental element to certain trees and this is reflected in Poole’s depiction of their large, intricately-knitted streams of overlapping
branches and leaves which tower over you. In asking the artist about her choice of ink for this body of work, she tells me that ink is the poetry of painting; it is not prose. She goes on to to talk about her close friend, the poet Nomzi Kumalo who inspired many of the titles of the artworks, such as ‘Summer is a small fortune’ from the poem ‘Liquid Sunshine’ and ‘Into the soft season’ which comes from Kumalo’s poem titled ‘Kitchen in my religion’. According to Poole, “the trees are for anyone who has ever lain beneath a tree and stared up into its branches” (Poole, 2018).
The Swarm ‘The Swarm’ is exquisite at the same time that it is slightly threatening and ominous. The buzzing of a hive of bees is not just the sound of production and reproduction, it is the sound of power in a network. If one is not allergic to bees, one sting will be painful but is not life threatening. Yet a swarm of bees can kill a human being whether they are allergic or not.
All the bees depicted in ‘The Swarm’ are female. They are the workers who go out and intersect and pollinate. The drones in the hive are male. In
describing her choices regarding the paintings of the bees, Poole (2018) recalls a conversation with Helen Barber-James, a Fresh Water Biologist: “I said to Helen that I had painted all sorts of different bee species — I wanted the bees to come across as many individuals together. I’ve painted them in different scales, smaller and bigger, to give a sense of distance and depth, flying in different directions, fairly characterful, some loose and some descriptive, all sorts of different species of bee (including bumblebees and carpenter bees who tend to be more solitary and don’t swarm). Helen was very struck by the diversity. She said in order for us to survive, we desperately need that diversity. Certain bees pollinate certain plants, and obviously we need a range of plants to live, from brush to crops to trees. So we need the corresponding range of bees, otherwise that’s the end of those plants.”
In conveying a sense of ‘The Swarm’, Poole has made a sound piece that forms part of the installation. It consists of recordings she made on a field trip in the Oldenburgia Conservancy, as
well as the sound of carpenter bees working away and spring at dawn in her garden. Readers of this catalogue can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUYSvQ9dm1Y
James Elkins (1996: 57) author of ‘The Object Stares Back’ places great emphasis on processes of seeing and how often we fail to see. As an art historian, he argues that we are constantly looking yet fail to see so many things because of the way we are focused on seeing only certain things. He tells us that if we are prepared to take the time to look, to really examine things and people closely, the ordinary becomes extraordinary and the world reveals its microbeauties and its most intimate and intricate of systems. Poole is the kind of artist described in Elkins’ book. She is the kind of artist who knows how to see and takes the time to look carefully and bravely. The body of work presented in this exhibition, and thus this catalogue, is about seemingly ordinary things: trees, insects, people, but there is nothing ordinary about this exhibition. Each element fits into a larger picture that works together as ‘The Whispering Spring’.
Khokela Camagu: Fossil Excavator and Preparator I’m a fossil excavator, preparator and cataloguer. I started working at the Albany Natural History Museum in Makhanda in 2012. I also give talks to schoolers (especially disadvantaged schools) about fossils.
I explain to them what palaeontology is and what fossils are, how we look for them in the field and how we prepare them for research. I also help with cataloguing.
Khokela Camagu, Fossil Excavator & Preparator
2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Zezethu Mnqeta, Botanist
2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Zezethu Mnqeta: Botanist Zezethu Mnqeta is from a small village called Ciko, Willowvale, Eastern Cape. Her love and passion for indigenous plants and how alien invasive plants displace them sparked her interest in the control of alien invasive plants. She once had an opportunity to manage an alien invasive clearing project using chemical control at the Great Fish River Nature Reserve. The knowledge and experience about chemical control method motivated her to join the Centre for Biological Control, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University as an MSc candidate in 2014. This was a point in time that allowed her to learn more about biological control of alien invasive plants.
Currently, she is working on the biological control of cactus weeds for her PhD project. The project aims to increase the level of control for cactus weeds by mass-rearing and releasing the agent. This will be achieved by long-term monitoring of mass-releases and raising awareness about biological control practice to farmers and land managers. The desired outcomes are to improve and increase the level of control that is already provided by the biological control agents, and by so doing improve land value. Her research interests are the integrated management of invasive alien plants, plant-insect interactions, freshwater ecology and Cactaceae.
Alexandra J. Holland: Trichoptera Taxonomist I always wanted to work with insects! Since I was in primary school I watched ants for hours and noted down how many arrived at the nest carrying what and how many left again.
PhD project focusing on pesticides (DDT) and their influence on shrimp symmetry as an indication of decreased water quality.
Studying Biology with an emphasis on Entomology and Genetics at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, I concluded my Master of Science degree working with honey bees at Rhodes University Makhanda (former Grahamstown), South Africa.
Thereafter, I commenced with a post-doctoral project at the Albany Museum, Department of Freshwater Invertebrates (Makhanda) with Dr Helen M. BarberJames as supervisor, studying insect biodiversity of rivers in the Kruger National Park — how über-cool is that?
After a short “baby break” I worked at The Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University as a Technical Officer for several years. This sparked an interest in river water quality and led to my
Having been chased by hippos and road-blocked by mighty elephants. I had one look at the insects I collected and fell in love with caddis flies (specifically Dipseudopsis capensis, in case you are wondering).
These insects spend most of their lives in the river under water, building cases out of available material (like leaves, sticks, sand and the likes) only emerging to fly about looking for a mate. So I am working with insects (my first ever love) and water quality (my professional love) — a perfect match! My current post-doctoral research is all about describing species new to science of these caddis flies. And yes: I often have Sir David Attenborough narrating my adventures in my head.
Alexandra J. Holland, Trichoptera Taxonomist Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
2018
Helen Barber-James: Freshwater Biologist Helen Barber-James’s research interests span the fields of ecology, phylogeography, historical biogeography, systematics of freshwater insects and conservation of freshwater ecosystems. As a museum-based scientist, a big part of her work is management of scientific collections. She is a freshwater biologist and head of the Department of Freshwater Invertebrates at the Albany Museum in Makhanda (Grahamstown), which houses a collection of over 2.5 million specimens, including limited material from other African countries. She has over 30 years of research experience, focusing in particular on the Ephemeroptera (mayflies), which are one of several insect groups that are frequently encountered during studies on freshwater ecosystems, especially rivers, and play an important role as bioindicators of the state of the aquatic environment they inhabit. As a senior research associate of Rhodes University and research associate of SAIAB (South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity), Helen lectures undergraduate courses on freshwater insects, supervises post graduate student projects and mentors interns. She is also the Eastern Cape auditor for the National River Health Program, and assesses the practitioners’ abilities to perform the South African biomonitoring
protocol, known as SASS5. She is a board member of the Society for Conservation Biology’s Freshwater Working Group, as well as member of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project’s research team, studying biodiversity in unstudied parts of Angola. She is on the committee of the National Science Collections Facility, and has been part of the BID (Biodiversity Information for Development) African Insect Altasing project, funded by GBIF (EU). She also recently led an NRF FBIP-funded* project on the biodiversity of freshwater invertebrates of the Kruger National Park Rivers. As part of the museum’s outreach program, she occasionally teaches school groups, and gives public lectures. She is passionate about biodiversity studies and relating this to environmental conservation. Helen is a mother of three daughters, all currently studying science at university, and has always tried to balance her career with bringing up her children.
*NRF FBIP = National Research Foundation, Foundational Biodiversity Information Program
Helen Barber-James, Freshwater Biologist
2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Aviwe Lwanda Nosipho Matiwane, Palaeobotanist 2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Aviwe Matiwane: Palaeobotanist Aviwe Matiwane is a PhD student registered at Rhodes University, based at the Albany Natural History Museum. She hails from a small village in Mqanduli known as Lower Nqwarha, outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. She obtained both her Honours and Master of Science degrees at Rhodes University, looking at the plant biodiversity of the Southern Mistbelt Forests of the Eastern Cape. She is currently working on a palaeobotanical and biostratigraphic project. In 2018, Aviwe was named as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. She is also proactive in the Outreach Programme at the Department of Earth Sciences in the Albany Natural History Museum. Aviwe was also part of the South African Fame Lab top ten national finalists. Her passion and enthusiasm captivated many people, leading her to be featured on many national and international science communication platforms. Aviwe has a strong passion for science communication, animals, education, outreach, and women’s empowerment. Her ancestral heritage has links with the Bhedla, Bhele, Thuwa, and Khunjwayo clans. One of her cultural beliefs is that bees are a spiritual link to her ancestors.
Rose Prevec: Palaeobotanist I can still scarcely believe that I am a professional palaeontologist — it was such a remote dream in 1997 when I decided to leave everything I knew and just go for it! The natural sciences had drawn me since early childhood, and there was never any question that I would be a scientist. My parents encouraged and nurtured my love of nature as well as geology, and the great fascinating abyss of deep time, as we see it by looking at the night sky, or considering the fossils that reveal Earth’s ancient past. Fossils were always a particular interest of mine, and to be working now as a professional palaeontologist at the Albany Museum in Makhanda is astounding to me. I love my work. To go exploring for fossils in the heat of the Karoo, to visit remote and fascinating places all over the world, to discover new things under the microscope in the laboratory, and to bring them to life and relevance, continues to inspire and motivate me. My particular field of research is the Permian-aged (300 — 253 million year-old) plants of Gondwana, particularly Glossopteris, the strange seed plant that was so common at the time, and that formed the economically important coals of South Africa. Recently, I have been broadening my work to include evaluations of the ecosystems of the Permian Period,
incorporating the insects, plants and vertebrate animal fossil record to recreate the ancient and foreign landscapes of this time. Working in a museum environment also means that I interact with curious members of the public, contribute towards a variety of educational activities with schools, lecture to and supervise university students, and also wrestle constantly with administrative tasks. This makes for a challenging, varied and fulfilling work environment that alternately threatens to swamp and elevate. My sanctuary is the home life I share with my wonderful, supportive husband, two young sons and assorted creatures.
Rose Prevec, Palaeobotanist
2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Mbunge Mbunge, Botany Student
2018
Kandahar ink & ground pigment on paper 125 x 100 cm
Mbunge Mbunge: Undergraduate Botany Student I am reading towards a degree in Botany and Biochemistry, which I will complete this year. I remember my university admission essay being very nostalgic about my time spent watching my great-grandmother gardening and my grandmother since. The desire to understand how they could make things grow and understand herbal medicines has remained central to finishing this degree. In a way, it is my chosen rite of passage into adulthood. This nostalgia and meeting myself along the way has given me clarity about shifting direction into art history.
Bee 154 (detail)
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm
OPPOSITE (left to right from top):
Bee 32, 18, 17, 10, 19, 15, 29, 8, 44
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm
Bee 93
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm
Bee 132
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm
OPPOSITE: Bee 79
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm cm
Bee 1
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm cm
Bee 2
2018
Ink on watercolour paper 21 x 29.6 cm cm
As an artist who has lived in many places in the world and who lives now in her adopted country of South Africa, Poole has a tendency to search for communities, and in them, a sense of belonging. She is fascinated by the intricacies of connections that exist between us. She is similarly interested in the complexity of intersecting knowledge about ourselves and our environment.
Poole has exhibited in group and solo shows in South Africa, London, Chicago, Mumbai, Berlin, Bochum and Liemen (Germany), New York, Venice, Bali, Vienna and Rejkjavik. She was most recently selected by Tumelo Mosaka as one of the Top Ten Emerging Artists from the African Continent at the Cape Town Art Fair 2017 and was represented by Galerie m, Bochum, at Art Düsseldorf. She holds a Nidan Black Belt in Shotokan Karate.
In order to produce a body of work — in this case the solo exhibition ‘The Whispering Spring’ — she immerses herself in research about the people involved and their field of interest or research. Poole has assisted on palaeontology digs where she helped to excavate fossils from the Mid Permian era of Gondwanaland and has accompanied scientists on entomological field trips and on research into water quality in South African streams. She has also been granted access to museum collections and archives for research.
Tanya Poole was born in Canada in 1971 and was raised in Bahrain, England and South Africa. She did her BFA and MFA at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa and later taught there as a Senior Lecturer in Painting until 2016. She currently lives in Makhanda with her artist husband Nigel Mullins and their daughter Sophie.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2018/19 The Whispering Spring, Galerie m, Bochum, Germany 2017
The Island, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
The Audience, Cape Town Art Fair on T’omorrows/ Today: The Top 10 Emerging artists from the African Continent’, curated by Tumelo Mosaka
2015
Thozama and Rose, Galerie m, Bochum, Germany
1998
Limnetic Zone (with photographs by Angela Lazaro), Standard Bank National Arts Festival, South Africa
Exhibition in Three Parts: Masters degree submission, including paintings, video installations and performance art, Grahamstown, South Africa
1996
Behind the Green Door, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
2015 Who Are You? Fried Contemporary, Pretoria, South Africa 2014 The Becoming Child, Underculture Contemporary, Port Elizabeth and Liebrecht Gallery, Somerset West, South Africa 2010 Juncture: New Paintings from South Africa, with Nigel Mullins and Luan Nel, Artspace, Linnienstrasse, Berlin, Germany 2010 Last One Standing, Artspace, Johannesburg, South Africa
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS 2017
‘Tomorrows/Today: Top Ten Emerging Artists from the African Continent’, Cape Town Art Fair, curated by Tumelo Mosaka
2015
Rhodes University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award
2005
The Eastern Cape Premier’s Art Award
2007
Drift, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2005
Missing, Franchise Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004
Joint overall winner (with Philip Rikhotso), the Brett Kebble Art Awards
2000
Inner Site Violence (with concept collaborator Clare Keenan), Grahamstown, South Africa
Eastern Cape Premier’s Art Award
Bedtime Stories, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2003
Finalist, the Brett Kebble Art Awards
1999
Inner Site Violence, St James, Cape Town and Millennium Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 Art Düsseldorf, represented by Galerie m, Bochum, Germany
2014 Group Show, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Birds, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2016
Reality Check, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Collection, IS Art, Franschhoek, South Africa
Playground, Moór Gallery, Franschhoek, South Africa
Nano, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2013
For Play, Underculture Contemporary, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Tom Waits for No Man, curated by Gordon Froud, KKNK Festival, Oudtshoorn, Olievenhuis, Bloemfontein, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
21st Century Island Angst, Voyager Creative Retreat, Bali, Indonesia
Imago Mundi Collection, Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, New York, USA
Material(i)sation, Art in the Yard, Franschhoek, South Africa 2015
Mappa dell’arte nuova, Imago Mundi (Luciano Benetton Collection), Venice, Italy
U/Tropia, curated by Brent Meistre and Daniel Ebner at the Vienna Art, Austria
Here There be Dragons, Gallery On Leviseur, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum Biennial Exhibition, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Blank Space, curated by Susanne Breidenbach, Galerie M Bochum, Essen, Germany
Here There be Dragons, Underculture Contemporary, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
2014
Naak, ArtB, Cape Town, South Africa
2012/3 Facing the Future: Portraits for Africa, Liebrecht Gallery, Somerset West, South Africa 2011
Mullinspoole, with Nigel Mullins, Liemen, Germany
2009 x2, curated by Zach Taljaard, Albany History Museum, Grahamstown, South Africa
To Those Lost, curated by Zach Taljaard, Albany History Museum, Grahamstown , South Africa
2008 Johannesburg Art Fair, South Africa
Between Meaning and Matter, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Hollywood, Nollywood, Bollywood, ArtSpace Mentorship Programme with Lindi Arbi and Nomusa Makhubu, World Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007
Greenhouse: from painting to plastic, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Lourensford, South Africa
2007
Possibilities, curated by the Bell-Roberts Gallery for SA Tourism, Mumbai, India
2005 Bell-Roberts and Gallery Momo Summer Show, Bell- Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
SELECTED COMMISSIONED PORTRAITS 2011 Roger Cameron, Headmaster, St John’s College, Johannesburg 2010
David Wylde, Headmaster, St Andrew’s, Grahamstown
New Painting, National South African Gallery, Durban, UNISA Gallery, Pretoria and Johannesburg National Art Gallery, South Africa
2007
David and Lesley Barritt and family
About Face, KKNK Festival, Oudtshoorn and Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2002
2004 Brett Kebble Art Awards, Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa 2003
Brett Kebble Art Awards, Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa
Four Play, Cuyler Street Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa Console, Grahamstown National Arts Festival, South Africa 2002
Rebellion & Uproar: The Escape From Robben Island of Makana & the Eastern Frontier Rebels, 1820, the Robben Island Museum; the 1820 Museum, Grahamstown National Arts Festival, South Africa; Reykjavik, Iceland
2002
Three Women, with Nicholette Cross and Dauphine, Mattamondo Gallery, Notting Hill, London, UK
1999
Soft Serve, facilitated by Public Eye, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
1996
Collection of South African Art, The Chicago Institute and the South African Embassy, USA
2004 Professor Matthew Lester and daughter, Jessica Vusi Khumalo, artist
2001 Dr David Woods: Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University
Professor Hugh Chapman
Professor Jakes Gerwil: advisor to President Nelson Mandela 1999
Francois Theron, Gabrielle Basola
Rachel Baasch is a writer, an artist and a lecturer in the department of Fine Art at Rhodes University. Baasch completed a Masters in Fine Art specialising in sculpture and installation (2013) and a PhD in Art History (2017) at Rhodes University. Born in KwaZulu Natal in 1987, she has based herself in Grahamstown for the last ten years.
within a Palestinian context. Focusing on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, her Doctoral dissertation titled ‘Visual Narratives of Division in Contemporary Palestinian Art and Social Space’ analyses the ways in which the Israeli apartheid wall and checkpoint security system create monumental and traumatic divisions in social and architectural space.
Her practical and theoretical interests lie in the intersections and connections that can be identified between different geographical and ideological spaces within the ‘global south’, especially those that transgress seemingly impermeable boundaries and forge new pathways through sites of socio-political division.
Using her methodology of Looking with the Skin, Baasch studies the artworks of artists who use their works to create openings, cracks and loopholes that signal the possibility for physical and psychological transgression of these seemingly impenetrable structures of division.
While engaging in fieldwork research for her doctoral degree she lived in Ramallah in the West Bank between 2013-2014 where she developed her own research methodology of “Looking with the Skin” as a sensitive and embodied response to the challenge of conducting “research”
Baasch believes that artists can make the human world a better place to live in and that artistic practice is one way of forging new connections in an increasingly disconnected and divided world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carson. R. 2002 (1962). Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Elkins, J. 1996. The Object Stares Back: On the nature of seeing. New York: Simon and Schuster. Harari, Y. 2011. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage Books. Mirzoeff, N., 2011. The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Durham: Duke University Press. Rogers, Graeme. 2004. Hanging out with Illegal forced migrants: Forced Migration Review. September (21) pp: 48-49. Smith, L.T., 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Van den Berg. Henk. 2009. “Global status of DDT and its alternatives for use in vector control to prevent disease� in
Environmental Health Perspectives vol. 117(11) pp:1656-63.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In creating the exhibition The Whispering Spring , one of the subtexts of the research that came to the fore was the understanding of the value of our ability to collaborate, to work together supportively, to co-evolve, and to honour the connections that link us to each other. In the spirit of this, and with a tremendous amount of gratitude, I would like to thank the following people who contributed in many ways to the creation of this project: Dr. Alexandra Holland, Aviwe Lwanda Nosipho Matiwane, Dr. Helen Barber-James, Zezethu Mnqeta, Dr. Rose Prevec, Khokela Camagu, Mihlali Mbunge, Nomzi Kumalo, Dr. Terence Bellingan, Dr. Rachel Baasch, Rebecca Cawood, Nigel Mullins, Sophie Mullins-Poole, Hlumela Kondile, Lena Sulik, Lindi Lombard, Susanne Breidenbach, Charles Shields, Emma Vandermerwe and, posthumously, Rachel Carson, the author of The Silent Spring , who was ahead of her time and who died before her time.
galerie@m-bochum.de