Visual arts speak to everyone. Young and old. Any language. Any religion. Any culture. And viewing the exhibitions are FREE!
For the 30th celebration of the KKNK, the aim is to create a visual arts programme that honours historical aspects of the Klein Karoo yet reaches out to the world and into the future.
Dialogues Across Place and Time is the theme for this year’s programme. We live in interesting times of intense socio-political challenges. Borders and barriers are increasing, ostensibly to ensure safety, but more often it fuels fear of the unknown. In some cases, it leads to wars, in most cases it leads to mistrust and separation.
Dialogues Across Place and Time is an attempt at a more nuanced conversation. One of multiple perspectives, where not all the players have to agree, but everyone is encouraged to share in the dialogue. Through conversations and interactions, we get to know one another across language, national and cultural borders. This in turn, leads to new perspectives.
A highlight of this year is the exhibition PLACE, which unites all previous festival artists, from the second festival (in 1996) to the last, in an unparalleled group show in Oudtshoorn. This is a milestone exhibition that includes an impressive list of arts stars.
The festival artist for 2026 is nomThunzi Mashalaba, an artist that quietly dissects the world and then re-assembles it on her own terms. The title for her exhibition is So, I Let Silence Explain. She is a clear voice within the South African art world, and it is an honour to present such an extensive body of her work at the KKNK. Her sensitive abstract works are meditative colour fields of textures. Her media meanders from textile to drawing to installation and create spaces that gently negotiate with the viewer.
There is a large visual offering that includes several local artists, such as Praatland, an extensive painting exhibition curated by Juria le Roux and Brahm van Zyl from the neighbouring town, De Rust.
Since the focus is on conversations across place and time, it is wonderful to confirm participation of several international artists in collaboration with South Africans. Participants are from, amongst others, Germany, Belgium, the DRC, Nigeria, France, Portugal and Denmark. There are exhibitions that exist as conversations between the past and the present, such as the Karoo Kaarte photographic exhibition and Stof tot verhaal , an exhibit that literally uses dust from the C.P. Nel Museum in town as the starting point for their interactive project. There is a documentary film, Doornkraal, based on local history, as well as a screen dance film at the Taalmonument, that employs movement as communication tool to discuss history, language and architecture as power structures.
Leave your personal convictions and preconceived ideas behind, allow curiosity to get the better of you, and spend time to look, feel and converse!
charlie bravo kom in
een aand op colesberg ek was sewe
ons was op pad kaapstad toe sien ons twee
laaities in telefoonhokkies met mekaar sit en gesels
die ou soort hokkie wat oranje was en uitgehol
en verbasend baie soos ’n eier hulle lywe was ten volle
in dié doppe ingetrek soos kuikens of dalk ruimtevaarders
hulle het gelag en was vir ’n wyle ontsettend ver van hier
en terwyl ek luister hoe hulle woorde in colesberg se lug
verdubbel soos in ’n badkamer se spieël het alles
volledig vir my sin gemaak ook vir my suster
net my pa was deurmekaar hulle praat
dan met mekáár het hy aanhou sê
en presies het ek aanhou antwoord
– Tom Dreyer in a parallel creative universe:(Nou in infrarooi)