"When We Gather" exhibition is celebrating 35 Years of Bag Factory Artists' Studios

[00:00:00]Bag Factory Artists Studio presents when we gather a fundraising group exhibition which features selected previous and current artists from three and a half decades of studio practices, awards, and project programming.

[00:00:14]With this exhibition, the Bag Factory Artists Studio builds a living archive of reconnecting artists who've passed through the studio at different moments in its history and places them alongside those currently working within its studio.

[00:00:28]As a result, the exhibition reveals how ideas, relationships, methods continue to circulate along after these artists have moved on.

[00:00:36]>> The exhibition when we gather celebrates 35 years of um our institution's existence.

[00:00:46]Even though we were established in 1991, our history precedes um precedes this.

[00:00:55]We are the product of a need that developed uh primarily by um young black artists who needed a space to work from, who needed a space to gather and exchange ideas and experiences, and a safe space to to contemplate and um experiment.

[00:01:22]So, when we gather is um is a an exhibition that collates more than 40 artists um celebrating different decades.

[00:01:36]And um they are by no means um exhaustive in the sense of um I mean, we have had so many more artists come through the doors of the Bag Factory.

[00:01:49]>> The coming together of established figures and emerging voices in South African contemporary art highlights the range of practices that the Bag Factory has supported over time. Here, painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media sit side by side, reflecting a shared space by openness.

[00:02:07]>> The selection criteria has differed through the different epochs of the Bag Factory.

[00:02:14]Uh at the beginning, it was a sense of um establishing which artists need a place to work from.

[00:02:24]The artists were also not necessarily just from South Africa. It was from sub-Saharan region.

[00:02:30]And um as the years and the organization has become somewhat more formal, uh the selection criteria has changed to uh at the moment, the selection criteria is based on an internal committee, which is made up of the artists that are based long-term artists that are based at the Bag Factory, as well as the um projects manager or curator of the exhibitions.

[00:03:02]>> The Bag Factory itself has long operated as more than just a studio.

[00:03:07]It has functioned as a site of encounters where artists, creators, and writers engage across generations and disciplines. The role remains current as it identifies, especially as it enters its 35th year.

[00:03:20]>> Work is mainly about uh the human suffering of like migrant laborers in Johannesburg, and it's it focuses both on historical and contemporary suffering of migrant uh laborers. And I used uh the goats as a metaphor in that that that series because uh goats are farmed in like uh hostels today, and it's not their natural habitant inhabitant, but then they get to adapt and survive in this new way of living in the city. And similarly as migrant labors when they moved to Johannesburg, they also had to adapt into this new way of living. But also historically, they also had to face harsh uh situations where they were controlled in like compounds and like they have faced harsh control and yeah, hardships.

[00:04:17]Color in my work is mainly because I usually struggle with uh too much color.

[00:04:23]So, that's why my my colors are more like monochromatic and like uh a bit dark. Yeah, I usually struggle with too much color. So, that's why my palettes are a bit yeah, uh uh dark. But it also helps with like uh how I translate the historical aspect of my work into like the present and it gives it that I guess a classical or uh like historical feel to it. It's an important exhibition which has uh different kinds of conversations.

[00:05:00]Uh there isn't one specific thing that you can come and like I get there are different conversations by different artists from different backgrounds, uh genders, race, and what have you. And yeah, you'll get different stories and yeah, I think it's important to get a sense of like what other artists in Johannesburg or in the country are doing currently.

[00:05:28]>> The exhibition is an act of honoring what has been, what is made, and what has been exchanged and continues to echo within the structure of the studio. For Morning Live, I am Thapelo Moela.

[00:05:57]>> Mhm.