Collection: 'Journey Mercies' - Group Exhibition

When I was a child I could see the dead. This changed my idea of sight as much as it would later change my understanding of notions of empathy, mercy and community. This lost gift has impressed upon me the fact that not only was I a conduit, but I was a continuation, too. It’s not an easy thing, accepting something you’re exiled over. Nor is it realising that you’re asked to stretch yourself, not only for the sake of your ancestors, but for the lack of your fellow believers. But just like elements, their energies find a way through, and this spiritual erosion has washed me clean time and time again.

It is not easy to grieve. But it is far worse to deny yourself mourning. I’ve seen what it does, as I walk through the streets of our city. Even people who know one another are far apart. We hold so little space for grief and are inundated with evidence of its urgency every day. What we’ve inherited in the wake of our country’s past has a toll that we’ve convinced ourselves that not everyone has to pay for, yet even subconsciously, we know it must be paid. We must grieve. We must also help each other to grieve, as well. We must move forward from this time of endings in a way that doesn’t betray our ancestral intuition. We must honour our bodies and one another as we would theirs: with care, kindness and community.

Journey Mercies is a prayer for guidance and safety throughout life’s transitions. A moment to reclaim our lost humanity in demanding that we now stand by it. The exhibition is an invitation through which the artists reflect on the evolution of resistance toward our ideas of freedom. From the bare struggle for survival, to authentic explorations of self-care and self-affirmation as acts of revolution. And, further still, to liberating acts of joy and wonder. From works such as Adrian Fortuin’s Where Are They Going?, 2024, to Rain or Shine, 2025, from Bahati Simoens, the exhibition envelops the multiplicity of emotion, reflection in the aftermath that is our present tense.

Redeveloping resistance challenges the perpetuation and adaptation of struggles of the past and centres on nurturing the collective, present spirit. Journey Mercies joins larger conversations about transformation and restitution in South Africa since its democratic declaration, focusing on African diasporic identities and the need for self-representation. It responds to a history of erasure, reclaiming space not only physically but emotionally and spiritually.

- Misha Krynauw