30 years of democracy can be celebrated in various ways, and one of the best ways to tell a story of the South African journey into democracy and freedom is through art.
From 20 April until 24 November, the South African Pavilion will present at the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, with a bold message for the world today. The exhibition is titled Quiet Ground and will be held in Venice in Italy. 
2024 marks the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, and the 7th year of the South African pavilion. Established in 1895, La Biennale di Venezia is one of the oldest art events in the world, with over 80 countries and artists represented at various individual pavilions.
The South African Pavilion media liaison Percy Mabandu said the exhibition will be supported by public programmes including digital content, events in Italy and South Africa and a school’s competition for young artists in South African secondary schools.
“Set against the backdrop of histories of forced migration and land dispossession in South Africa the exhibition, Quiet Ground is focused on the possibilities of personal and communal repair in a context of being ‘foreign at home’.
“In this way, these themes link the pavilion and exhibition to the occasion of 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa; marking the nation’s continued journey towards correcting the historic disruptions of indigenous people’s connection to the land,” said Mabandu.
He added that the 2024 pavilion’s programming will unfold through 3 pillars: Art in South Africa, The Land as Classroom, and notions of Repair through Art.
He said the exhibition and its parallel public programmes will focus on the many ways that the dispossessed reconnect with the land through processes of rehoming and land rehabilitation, rooted in indigenous knowledge.
“Unfolding under the theme, “…because the land is ours” to assert ideas, practices of building belonging by listening to the land as a portal to re-route and re-root ourselves against violence and displacement,” Mabandu said.
He added that the pavilion’s exhibition theme and campaign message are a compelling complement to the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia’s main exhibition theme by curator Adriano Pedrosa: Foreigners Everywhere (Stranieri Ovunque).
The South African Pavilion appointed the Institute of Creative Repair to develop and manage the 2024 Venice Biennale. The institute is a newly formed 'think and do tank' based in Johannesburg. Its mission is to repair people, communities, institutions and places through arts, heritage, and culture.
Mabandu said the exhibition is curated by Dr Portia Malatjie and will feature a newly commissioned sound installation, Dinokana (2024) by the art collective, MADEYOULOOK made up of Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho.
“Dr Malatjie is a curator and senior lecturer in Art History and Discourse of Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She is adjunct curator of Africa and African Diaspora at the Hyundai Tate Research Centre for Transnational at Tate Modern in London, United Kingdom,” said Mabandu.
“MADEYOULOOK is a Johannesburg based interdisciplinary artist collaborative between Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho. The works of MADEYOULOOK take as their point of departure everyday black practices that have either been historically overlooked or deemed inconsequential. These works encourage a re-observation of and de-familiarisation with the everyday of urban South African life,” he added.
For more information, visit: www.thesouthafricanpavillion.co.za
Facebook: @thesouthafricanpavilion
Instagram: @sa_pavilion
Or Institute of Creative Repair: www.instituteforcreativerepair.com
Email: info@instituteforcreativerepair.com
Instagram: @instituteforcreativerepair
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