Two Openings: SOIL & WATER and Diane Victor: The Ground Beneath Our Feet

SOIL & WATER
Opening of the exhibition: 1 November 2025, 11:00
NIROX Sculpture Park, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa

Curated by Basak Senova and Johan Thom
with curatorial input from Benji Liebmann and the NIROX Team

Diane Victor: The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Opening of the exhibition: 28 October 2025
Bridge Gallery, Javett Art Centre, University of Pretoria

Curated by Basak Senova and Johan Thom

The large-scale artistic research project and exhibition SOIL & WATER unfolds within the ancient ancestral land of the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa. Developed collaboratively by Prof. Johan Thom (University of Pretoria) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basak Senova (University of Applied Arts Vienna) in collaboration with the NIROX Foundation, the project brings together international artists whose practices engage with the fragile and interdependent relationship between soil and water, the two fundamental substances that sustain all life on Earth.

Conceived as a modular platform, SOIL & WATER opens with the extensive exhibition at the NIROX Sculpture Park in November 2025 and continues through April 2026 with residencies, dialogues, performances, concerts, community engagement, and a publication.

The project took root nearly three years ago when NIROX founder Benji Liebmann voiced urgent concern about the pollution of rivers and groundwater in the Cradle, threatening the integrity of this unique biosphere. This ecological emergency became the catalyst for a curatorial response that insists art must do more than illustrate facts. It must create meaning and urgency. Soil and water are active agents. They store and release, conceal and reveal, preserve and transform. They are ecological and ideological, mnemonic and political. They carry time, memory, and history. They shape life and dissolve it.

SOIL & WATER brings these dimensions into visibility, inviting artistic practices to unearth what lies hidden beneath the surface — the sediments of memory, the entangled human and non-human worlds, and fragile futures. The participating artists, working from South Africa, Austria, India, Turkey, Ukraine, France, Germany, Sweden, Ethiopia, and beyond, anchor the project in lived realities while extending it into shared imaginaries.

The exhibition features works by over 50 international artists includingAbri de Swardt (ZA), Alet Pretorius (ZA), Anastasiia Shcherban (UA), Atang Tshikare (ZA), Atul Bhalla (IN), Barbara Putz-Plecko (AT), Bronwyn Lace featuring The Centre for the Less Good Idea (ZA), Caroline Le Méhauté (FR), Christophe Fellay (CH), Coral Bijoux (ZA), Diego Masera (AR), Diane Victor (ZA), Douglas Gimberg & Diana Vives (ZA), Ebru Kurbak (TR/AT), Egle Oddo (IT/FI), Eugénie Touzé (FR), Francesco Bellina (IT), Hera Büyüktasçiyan (TR), Herrana Addisu (ET), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Isa Rosenberger (AT), Jacob van Schalkwyk (ZA), Jessica Ostrowicz (UK), Jesper Just (DK), Johan Thom (ZA), Jonatan Habib Engqvist (SE), Ledelle Moe (ZA), Lorin Sookol (ZA), Lundahl & Seitl (SE), MADEYOULOOK (ZA), Maria Lantz (SE), Marcus Neustetter (AT/ZA), Mithu Sen (IN), Olha Fedorova (UA), Oya Silbery (CY), Raúl Mirlo (MX), Paula Anta (ES), Ramesh Daha (AT), Robin Rhode (ZA/DE), Rojda Tugrul (TR), Sebastian Stumpf (DE), Seretse Moletsane (ZA), Setlamorago Mashilo (ZA), The ZoNE (AT/CH/TR/ZA), and Vibha Galhotra (IN).

SOIL & WATER is a collaborative project developed by the University of Pretoria, the NIROX Foundation, and Sculpture Park. The project is supported by the NIROX Foundation, University of Pretoria, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Rooms Kyrenia, ARUCAD – Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design, Austrian Cultural Forum Pretoria, BIENALSUR - Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo del Sur, BMKÖS – Austrian Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, Danish Arts Foundation, Embassy of Austria in South Africa, Embassy of Spain in South Africa, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, IASPIS – International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts, Italian Cultural Institute of Pretoria, SKF – Support Art and Research, KKP – Art and Communication Practices, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Kunsthaus Dahlem Berlin, L’Accolade e Foundation Paris, The Claire and Edoardo Villa Will Trust South Africa, Ukrainian Institute, and Techizart Istanbul.

As an extension of SOIL & WATER, Diane Victor’s solo exhibition The Ground Beneath Our Feet expands the project’s conceptual framework into an individual artistic narrative. Curated by Basak Senova and Johan Thom, the exhibition unfolds through different bodies of work that engage with memory, loss, and what lies beneath the soil.

Victor draws intensely from her personal background in South Africa, where, owing to her father’s profession, she was raised in a mining environment. Mining, with its multifaceted ties to labour, landscape, and exploitation, has become a formative source for her artistic practice. In this context, Victor explores interconnected themes of violence and layered, often buried histories from a feminist perspective. To evoke the physical and symbolic weight of extraction, she works with natural materials such as smoke, dust, and cobalt. By grounding her works for this exhibition in these materials, she links her personal history to broader narratives of contested resources, human struggle, material transformation, and endangered ecologies.

The exhibition brings together newly produced large-scale installations, drawings, and existing works by Victor as part of a fluid, singular spatial composition. Dust, smoke projections, and floor drawings form core elements, addressing things we might try to bury or forget. The exhibition space itself becomes part of this narrative, with carefully orchestrated light and shadows shaping the overall atmosphere and spatial experience. The installation integrates floor drawings, works on glass with smoke, and sculptural elements in dialogue with the venue’s architecture, allowing the works to unfold organically. Light is employed not only to reveal forms but also to guide the viewer’s experience, highlighting the interplay between wall and floor works as well as a major hanging installation, creating an immersive surrounding.

The exhibition is supported by the University of Pretoria including the Faculty of Humanities, the School of the Arts, UP Museums, and the Javett Art Centre (University of Pretoria). Running alongside the exhibition is a site-specific installation by Victor, presented as part of the SOIL & WATER project, further connecting the two exhibitions through shared conceptual and material grounds.

www.soilandwater.net