AN OLD GRAIN SILOS FULL OF ART

Opened in 2017 by the brainchild of German philanthropist and ex-CEO of PUMA Jochen Zeitz and South African curator Mark Coetzee, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is housed in a behemoth of a building carved out of a former grain silo under the direction of Heatherwick Studio.

Cape Town’s prominent grain silo was once used to store and grade maize from all over South Africa. With the advent of containerised shipping, the huge piece of concrete infrastructure was decommissioned and in need of a new purpose. Shortly after the Victoria & Albert Waterfront had approached Heatherwick Studio to develop and adapt the site, an initiative began to create Africa’s first international museum dedicated to contemporary African Art. The two programmes coincided to transform the grain silo into a new permanent home for Jochen Zeitz and its collection of contemporary art as the catalytic starter for the new museum. The museum represents the first major not-for-profit contemporary art museum dedicated to 21st-century art from Africa and its diaspora, with the aim to display seminal artworks produced by African artists and illustrate modern discourses, ultimately telling the nation's history and a tale of its present and future.

We had the chance to interview the curatorial team of Zeitz MOCAA on the role of the museum in African cultural scene as well as on current and future exhibitions.

Q: Since the opening of Zeitz MOCAA, the museum has covered a central role in the contemporary art panorama in South Africa. Can you tell us how this project came about?

A: Zeitz MOCAA is a great investment for South Africa’s continuously growing artistic landscape and economy, that said it does not only serve South Africa, but rather aims to showcase artists from the continent and the diaspora. While there is of course a focus on South Africa in certain contexts, for example the recent Heritage Day celebrations which aimed to reintroduce the museum to our immediate local audiences, the museum serves a larger Pan African audience and community of artists. This is seen also in our weekly free day, Africa Wednesdays, where guests from the African continent are granted free access to the museum.

Q: The architecture of Zeitz MOCAA - by renowned designer Thomas Heatherwick - can be considered a “cultural infrastructure”. Located inside a converted 1920s grain silo, its centrepiece is a 7-storey-high atrium that has been carved out of the cellular concrete tubes that make up the building's original structure allowing it to extend the mission of the museum itself. How close is the relationship between culture and architecture in South Africa?

A: The relationship between culture and architecture on the African continent is inextricable. As you have mentioned, the building that the museum occupies has historical and cultural significance. Cultures are malleable and change and grow according to the needs of the people who participate in those cultures and architecture helps to build the environments that help form those cultures.

Q: Zeitz MOCAA represents South Africa's biggest art museum. Which are, in your view, the main aspects that differentiate Zeitz MOCAA from other institutions?

A: Zeitz MOCAA is the biggest contemporary art museum dedicated to African art on the African continent, meaning that the physical scale of the museum is considered to be one of our draw cards. Aside from the large space that the museum occupies, it is also set in a historically rich grain silo building that has recently turned 100 years old. The museum also takes on various forms of extensive programming such as the Zeitz MOCAA Atelier, Zeitz MOCAA & The University of the Western Cape Museum Fellowship Programme and the BMW Center for Art Education. The range of artists that we work with is broad and includes artists from Africa and its Diaspora as well as international artists whose work is concerned with the African continent.

Q: The museum has an extensive annual offer with several activities, including also the annual artist-in-residence. Can you please give us a preview of current and future exhibitions? Is there one of these exhibitions you would like to focus on / describe to us?

A: Currently on show in the museum we have SALA, a collection exhibition conceived by the 2023 cohort of the Zeitz MOCAA and University of the Western Cape Fellows alongside Storm Janse Van Rensburg. We also host the atelier which has previously been a studio for artists such as Unathi Mkonto, Igshaan Adams, Thania Peterson and currently hosts Bernie Searle. Across the atelier we have another collection show titled, Selections from the Collection. A new floor is currently under construction for the opening of Nolan Oswald Dennis’ solo show Understudies, curated by Thato Mogotsi. Other exhibitions include Seekers, Seers, Soothsayers, curated by Tandazani Dhlakama as well as Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Other Side of Now, curated by Beata America, assisted by Khanyisile Mawhayi.

Q: Which are the key criteria that you and your team follow in terms of definition of the annual planning and cultural offer? Is there a particular theme you follow?

A: Every winter, we sit together as a curatorial team and every member of the team brings in their ideas and suggestions for the years to come, the process is every democratic and every team member is allowed space to make their voice heard. We are always led by the vision and mission of the museum which is to exhibit and research contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora; conceive and host international exhibitions; develop supporting educational, discursive and enrichment programmes and encourage intercultural understanding. As a team we try our best to be knowledgeable about what is happening in the contemporary art space, especially where it affects the African continent and its diaspora.

Q: How is the “typical” visitor of Zeitz MOCAA? Is there a specific audience you would like to speak to?

A: Zeitz MOCAA strives to create “access for all” and have recently launched a campaign to engage with our local audiences more - using Heritage Day (24th of September) which is a public holiday in South Africa, to launch public programming specifically curated for our immediate local audience. Our first iteration of public holiday programming was a massive success, giving audiences free access to the museum on the day as well as discounts on memberships. On this single day we welcomed over 5,000 guests into the museum, the largest number of guests on a single day since the museum’s opening in 2017. That said, there is of course a large interest from international tourists, given the location of the museum in a tourist hot spot, the V&A Waterfront, which is one of the most visited places on the continent. However, the museum does not cater to a specific type of visitor but aims to create content and programming that can be understood by different guests from all walks of life.

Q: What kind of experience do you want visitors to have at the museum?

A: Museums can be daunting spaces for many, some might be intimidated by the content, others might not have an interest in art but are more intrigued by the architecture, while some expect to see a specific kind of artist expression. That said the museum aims to welcome all visitors and hopes to create an experience that brings the visitor closer to an understanding of Contemporary African Art, through the various guides that are available in the museum. Our 2023 Museum Fellowship cohort addresses this topic in their show, SALA, where the audience’s experience is centralised so as to consider first and foremost the visitors' experience in the exhibition. In SALA, audiences are guided with wall texts, invitations, specially designed furniture and curatorial choreography to encourage visitors to spend more time engaging with the art.

Q: In terms of future museum’s activities, how do you plan to further develop it? How do you see Zeitz MOCAA in 10 years’ time?

A: Currently there are many projects on the horizon that we wish to see grow exponentially in the next 10 years. These include the Zeitz MOCAA x University of the Western Cape Fellowship Programme which will launch an Alumni Programme where previous fellows will be invited to continue their professional development at Zeitz MOCAA through a scholarship call that will allow them to pursue their postgraduate studies. We recently launched the African Art Resource Center (AARC) which is repository for both digital and analogue archival materials and a space to generate leading-edge critical discourse around 20th and 21st century African art practice. It is inclusive of Zeitz MOCAA’s own institutional memory and invites critical engagement from within and outside the academy in response to its growing archive, dissolving barriers of access between Zeitz MOCAA’s theoretical and practice-based outputs and the public.

Q: Are there any cultural institutions, South African or foreign, with which you would like to collaborate in the future?

A: Zeitz MOCAA has collaborated with many cultural institutions in its short 7 years of existence, and of course wishes to continue this practice as the art ecosystem, especially for those on the continent, is small and we rely on each other to build the community. We hope to expand these collaborations beyond the ecosystem so as to further the message of art beyond the boundaries of the art ecosystem and landscape not only on the continent but beyond. Previous collaborators include, FNB Art Joburg, Investec Art Fair, we have also worked with Kunstmuseum Basel and other international art institutions to host When We See Us as it travels through Europe.

Q: To conclude, as you know, one of the missions of Stella is sustainability: in this respect, how can art raise awareness on this matter?

A: Art has the ability to appeal to our emotions and senses in a way that takes these abstract ideas about climate change and the anthropocene and brings them to a human tangible level that we can all understand and relate to. We can use better museum and exhibition practices to start exploring better options for what has been a historically climate unfriendly industry and build sustainable futures for art and museum practices.