Notes

Mine speaks to the weight of inheritance – the land claimed, the histories unearthed, and the legacies that persist. Part of a larger body of work titled From the Woods to the Soil, it forms an introspective journey into the complexities of white African identity, explored through the critical and cultural lens of the braai. Encased in five resin forms, the piece captures fragments of this layered heritage: braaiwood, gold leaf, 3D printing plastic, and ash. Each material reflects cycles of settlement and disruption. Braaiwood, often an invasive species, alludes to a colonial past – a (family) tree alien to this land, yet embedded in its soil. This symbol now fuels a fire central to South African culture, a quiet relic of forced adaptation. Fire emerges as a powerful force – destructive and generative – transforming, erasing, and exposing. Ash, the residue of what once was, sits alongside the synthetic precision of 3D-printed plastic, opening a dialogue between past and digital present, between inherited identities and those we reconstruct. The transparent resin acts as both time capsule and clinical sample – an attempt to isolate and examine histories still rooted in land and psyche. Suspended like specimens of memory, these elements become fragments of a personal and collective past, held up to new scrutiny. Mine asks what truly belongs to us, what we inherit, and what we choose to carry forward.