To the Artists ✨
Thank you for responding to the open call, bringing your practice to Spier Wine Farm, engaging deeply with the platform, and pushing the medium into new territories.
Thank you for trusting Light Place to facilitate the conditions for experimentation and for creating work that transformed how audiences experience light.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #LightArt #Artists #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #AfricanArt #PublicArt
The Team ✨
Spier Light Art was the result of months of collaboration. Thank you for bringing care, expertise, and commitment to every stage.
Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather – Co-Curators Bié Venter – Project Manager Ashley Petersen – Public Programmes Coordinator & Project Assistant Riyaaz Payne – Technician Alex Brits – Social Media Coordinator
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Produced by Light Place
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #LightArt #PublicArt
Thank You ✨
Light Place thanks our sponsors and suppliers for making this year's exhibition possible.
A special thanks to the Spier Wine Farm team for hosting us, creating an environment where artists can produce and audiences can engage with the work, and for bringing care and insight to every aspect of the programme.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #LightArt #SpierWineFarm #PublicArt #Gratitude
A look back at "Convergence" panel discussion with Spier Light Art.
Thanks to the panelists, Dr Nkosenathi Koela, Wezile Harmans, Theytjie, Florian Bach, Noah Hall and Mmakhotso Petousis; and to Siphokazi Jonas for holding the conversation with such care.
And a warm thank you to everyone who joined us. Your energy and engagement made Convergence a truly special evening.
@siphokazi_j@nkosenathikoela@wezileharmans@theytjie@florianbach7@noark_art@mmakhotsolamola
#SpierLightArt #ICA #convergence
Images by Lerato Maduna
Making in Context ✨
Light Place thanks Pro Helvetia Johannesburg for supporting a two-year artist residency programme that creates space for international artists to research, reflect, and respond to South African context.
This year, Swiss artist Florian Bach returns to present SPILL – new work developed following his 2025 research visit. Swiss artist Kerim Seiler begins his first research visit, a process of engagement and learning that he will carry forward into new work in 2027.
The residency offers time and support for artists to engage on their own terms – to spend time on site, to reflect on what they encounter, and to allow their experiences to shape their practice.
Light Place facilitates the conditions for this experimentation and production. The artists choose how to respond.
Thank you, Pro Helvetia.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council
Thank you to @adj.techsa and @nexusscaffolding for all your support in making these works possible.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #ProHelvetia #ArtistResidency #InternationalExchange #SwissArt #SouthAfricanArt #ContemporaryArt #LightArt
Spotlight 6
Wezile Hermans - Endlovini as a form of archive
‘Endlovini as a Form of Archive’ is an installation that dwells in the tension between fragility and resilience. Built from found objects – silk, mutton cloth, thread and wood – it becomes a shelter and memory site, a space where survival transforms into resistance.
Thando Mama - 1994 (l) (Revisited)
‘1994 (I) (Revisited)’ reflects on South Africa's past, present and future, examining the country's journey since the dawn of democracy in 1994 while acknowledging its ongoing complexities.
Strijdom van der Merwe - Artifacts
In ‘Artifacts’, the artist explores the insights archaeological excavations on Cape Dutch farmsteads provide into the daily lives and cultural traditions of early European colonisers in South Africa – especially between the 17th and 19th centuries. These pieces frequently feature Dutch ceramics, showcasing the colonial impact. The blue and white VOC designs and patterns are easily recognisable on these artifacts.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Spotlight 5
Noa Hall - Sentinel
‘Sentinel’ is an experimental documentary and visual essay following the Braamfontein Spruit and the pylons that line its course from urban spaces into the suburbs. The film shifts between careful observation and lyrical abstraction, using lingering stillness, slow pans, and moments where geometry, reflection and shadow transform pragmatic structures into spectral forms.
Theytjie - Closer to harm than home
‘Closer to Harm than Home’ is a short film that explores the ongoing impact of gun and gang violence on Coloured communities in the Cape Flats. Moving beyond the statistics and headlines, the film centres around the human reality of conflict by foregrounding the resilience, fear and enduring spirit of those who navigate daily life.
Sam/Xam Fortuin - Onthou
‘Onthou’ is an audio-visual short film of a recurring dream that begins and ends on the edge of a kelp forest on the Cape Town coast. Emerging from the waters with the sound of a bow, is a dream-walker who leads us to a secret place on the beach under a boulder. This is where dream-walkers of the Cape go to visit their ancestral dreamscapes, bringing back with them stories of their journeys. In this story, water is the portal into the dream realm.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Spotlight 4
Qondiswa James, Nathalie Ponlot, Themba Stewart & Jonothan O’Hear - Safe in the shadows
‘Safe in the shadows’ is an interactive installation that reclaims darkness as sanctuary. The collective assembles a network of cairns – stone, translucent resin, and salvaged remnants – linked by root-like conduits that echo mycelial threads and neural pathways. Each cairn shelters a different interior ecology: roots, light, two-way mirror, tablet.
Ronald Abdou & Zach Stewart - Burning
‘Burning’ is a collaborative installation that explores how conflict is experienced in the digital age. At its centre, a car burns – an image of destruction that is simultaneously real and symbolic – echoing the now-familiar spectacle of violence. Surrounding it are multiple viewing points designed as social media frames.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Spotlight 3
Kenneth Shandu - When the sky falls
‘When the Sky Falls’ is a poetic and reflective installation responding to the devastating floods that continue to affect communities across South Africa. These recurring disasters, intensified by climate change, poor urban planning and social inequality result in loss, displacement and the ongoing vulnerability of those most affected.
Amy Leibbrandt & Stephen van den Heever - A moment of rest for you and those who can’t
People live with mental strain particularly in informal settlements, areas of war and famine, unable to truly rest and repair their nervous systems. ‘A moment of rest for you and those who can't’, positioned between the trees near the Eerste Rivier, engages with the notion of rest for those attending and in honour of those who can’t.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Spotlight 2
Paul Thabo - Fiddlearth
‘Fiddlearth’ is an animated series employing various media and creative techniques to explore life in South Africa after the end of Apartheid. It looks at identity, mental health, masculinity, and injustice in today’s world. Through abstract images and movement, it shows shared emotions, cultural change, and how people’s sense of self continues to evolve.
Joe Turpin - Eish
‘Eish’ is a South African slang term used to show frustration or annoyance with, or respond to, an unforeseen circumstance. The artist says: “I grew up saying “eish”, learning it at public school. With each colour of the letters and exclamation marks being those of the flag of South Africa, this work is a playful attempt at interpreting the everyday realities in our country that may be different from the promises of a post-1994 South African democratic nation state.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Spotlight 1
Kunye Colab - Lumen Vitae
‘Lumen Vitae’ (Light of Life in Latin) explores the profound symmetry between the human body and the cosmos. Two circles of light pulse within one another – an inner orb embraced by a larger one – evoking both a blazing sun and a living cell. This duality speaks to universal geometry that connects all existence: from nuclei to galaxies, life unfolds in cycles and spirals that bind everything together.
Chelsea Holland - The gray area in the Cape Winelands
The visual in ‘The Grey Area in the Cape Winelands’ is the result of an intricate live feedback nodal network system developed using motion design software. In the design space, an atmosphere of dust particles moving in a light breeze is simulated. In the centre of that space is a cube made of RGB light. In front of the cube is a camera, which records only the front face, as if at eye level – a square frame.
Renee Holleman - Under the overgrowth is no small measure of sunlight
Under the Overgrowth is No Small Measure Of Sunlight’ celebrates the weedy species that comprise the undercommons of the Spier estate and surrounding environment, drawing a connection between daylight as a spectrum of frequencies – which plants use for growth – and the inclusive nature of biodiversity. It asks us to consider how acts of unmaking and undoing that challenge binary distinctions (between plants that do and don’t belong) can enable creative, generative and surprising ways of being in the world.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
With support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, the Swiss Arts Council.
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
Works That Endure ✨
Light Place thanks the Spier Arts Trust for their ongoing care for the permanent installations on the farm and their support of this year's exhibition.
The 2026 programme includes David Brown's Dog Watch I, Jenna Burchell's Songsmith, and Tiago Rodrigues' The Sound of My Voice – permanent works that continue to activate Spier's landscape. The Trust also loaned Mawande ka Zenzile's UBUGQI, a work exploring direct, experiential knowledge of the sacred that emerges suddenly, beyond logic or text. The neon glow becomes a call to experience rather than interpret.
Public art requires sustained attention to remain vital.
Thank you, Spier Arts Trust.
📅 Spier Light Art 2026 | 6 March – 6 April spierlightart.co.za
Curated by Vaughn Sadie & Jay Pather | Produced by Light Place
#SpierLightArt #LightPlace #SpierArtsTrust #PublicArt #LightArt #ContemporaryArt #SouthAfricanArt #SpierWineFarm
