Sea: A Boiling Vessel (2023) brings together the work of two artists, Reshma Chhiba and Kamyar Bineshtarigh. The exhibition is held in partnership with Aazi Archives, Kerala, India, who initiated a project of the same name in Kerala earlier that year, bringing together writers, academics, artists, musicians, and performers to explore the maritime history of Kerala as a node or gateway opening out towards the rest of the world. This iteration was intended to think about how artists practising in South Africa might be able to add to, enrich, or complicate the broader conversations that were held; to look at different histories or stories from within South Africa that had ties to the Indian Ocean. Drawn to the idea outlined in their initial curatorial statement, of the ocean as an enigmatic body — this space of unknowing, of potential but also danger, and what it means to inhabit a similar grey zone — this exhibition focused on the sonic and languaging.

It was comprised of three works: a sculptural installation by Reshma Chhiba, titled On the tip of my tongue (2023), a painting of Chhiba’s titled The annihilation of time (2023), and an audiowork by Kamyar Bineshtarigh titled Inshaaf (2020), in which you hear the voice of a woman trying to read a passage written in one language (Arabic) in the tongue of another (Afrikaans).

[Catalogue essay forthcoming]