The brainchild of the Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust (SOST), Stellenbosch Triennale 2025 has announced its theme and official dates. Following its debut in 2020, the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025 promises to be a wholesome celebration of contemporary art.
Over the years, South Africa has experienced significant growth in its contemporary art landscape. With the establishment of institutions like the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and the Norval Foundation’s Art Museum in Cape Town, the region has been hoisted to the status of a global art hub. Cape Town is also a host to Africa’s biggest art fair.
While Stellenbosch is not in Cape Town, the town is just an hour away. And this location carries with it a significant story. “Just a regular town,” one might think. On the contrary, there is nothing regular about this white-saturated region of the country. The average black South African does not exactly hold the fondest memories of this town. Home to the university where the shapers of apartheid received an education, the town still stands as a reminder of that overtly oppressive era. All that history is what makes it surprising that Stellenbosch now hosts an art event with such a concentration on pan-Africanism and black African artists.
Lke other international bienniales and triennales, the Stellenbosch Triennale is a large-scale contemporary art exhibition featuring various artists from different countries. What sets it apart from art fairs or art festivals is that it is not sales-driven or commercial. It is simply a celebration of art that challenges visitors and participants to think outside the box while staying true to the event’s theme.
At the root of its foundation is the desire to re-imagine Stellenbosch as a creative city, a key destination for multi-disciplinary art and one that contributes to the thriving art-related conversations across the continent. The Stellenbosch Triennale 2020 had a successful run for about six weeks until it was shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The short-lived experience came as a letdown to its organisers.
Exactly five years later, the Stellenbosch Triennale will be making a comeback. Open to all and free, the event will run from the 19th of February to the 30th of April 2025 at Oude Libertas, the Woodmill, Rupert Museum, and Stellenbosch University Museum. The theme for the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025 is “Ba’zinzile: A Rehearsal for Breathing,” which seeks to explore art as both a practice and an invitation to reflect, connect, and imagine.
In this upcoming edition, Chief Curator, Khanyisile Mbongwa and Assistant Curator, Dr. Mike Mavura invite artists to create their pieces on-site, over 10 days. Their artworks will also be made of materials which can be recycled or disintegrated back to land after the event. This eliminates the need to transport the artworks to and fro, thereby minimising the carbon footprint attached to the Triennale and promoting sustainability.
As an alumnus of Stellenbosch University, Chief Curator, Khanyisile Mbongwa works across public spaces and interdisciplinary practices. According to her, the theme of Stellenbosch Triennale 2025 was inspired by her ancestors, especially the Nguni idea of Uku’zinza (which means “being grounded and calm”). The main idea is that stillness is a mechanism for survival and being alive. To stay alive, one must learn to breathe and breathe well. Regardless of trials and tribulations, even when our breath stutters, we must breathe to live on. The theme positions the Triennale as an experiment where everyone participates in a “Rehearsal for Breathing.”
Therefore, the scheduled series of exhibitions at the Stellenbosch Triennale 2025 is a curated laboratory of creative engagement. Finally, Mbongwa ties it all up with a compelling question. She asks, “If death is the given condition, how do we prepare to live?”
