12 Hours of Breathing – presented by the Re-curators Curatorial Collective – is an exhibition of figurative and abstract mixed media works. Relying on the current zeitgeist of ontological precarity, we look inwardly at practices of (artistic) self-preservation and being present: the act of being alive. In getting used to being unable to engage with one another as we once knew, this exhibition explores the many tangents of this existentialism in multiple ways: the mundane; modes of leisurely practice, radical acts of self-care and even with the split moments of joy.

The exhibition reflects on the sense of wrestling and surrendering to the complicated feelings of what it means to be living right now – enduring ontological ruptures. However, the indulgence is not macabre despondency. It is scholar, Paolo Bartoloni who writes about the clarity that might arise from precarity, that which is inextricably linked with the potential. Informed by lived experiences, each featured artist presents their articulation(s) of selfhood, compounded by our current obscure reality and its weighted implications with history, belonging and the ongoing quest of freedom.

Participating artists:

• Alexandra-Naledi Holtman
• Lorraine Kalassa
• Okhi Mookho Ntho
• Ravelle Pillay
• Zenande Mtati

Re-curators Curatorial Collective is interested in developing and cultivating research and artistic methodologies around Black cultural production in Africa and its diaspora. The collective was founded in 2018 in an Honours Curatorship course. Re-curators operates interdisciplinarily between curating, workshop facilitating, publishing, artist management, art advising and acquisitions, as well as research production.