Join One and the Many Conversation Series Part 2 & 3

One and the Many Conversation Series: Artists and scholars in dialogue and a performance by Gabi Motuba this February

Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP) invites audiences to join the One and the Many Conversation Series this February. Through panel discussions and a live sonic performance by Gabi Motuba, parts 2 and 3 of the series brings together artists, scholars, and cultural thinkers to explore  ideas of collectivity, identity, and shared futures, creating space for reflection, exchange, and critical thought within and beyond the gallery. 

Made possible by the support of the Australian High Commission in South Africa, the series is an ongoing dialogue which deepens engagement with the One and the Many exhibition’s central themes, exploring the dynamic relationship between the individual and the collective. 

Part 2 Friday, 27 February 2026, 11:00-13:00

Residues and Reveries: Assemblages of Belonging

This panel discussion brings together artists Katlego Tlabela and Stephanie Conradie in a conversation that explores the generative tension between their practices. While their works occupy distinct conceptual terrains within One and the Many, they intersect in compelling ways. Tlabela’s exploration of aspiration, class performance, and Black visibility is set in dialogue with Conradie’s material excavations of domestic life, cultural inheritance, and the residues of coloniality. Together, their practices offer a layered meditation on how identities are constructed, inherited, and contested.  The session will be moderated by Javett-UP’s Curatorial Assistant for Education and Programming Keneilwe Chuene.

Part 3 Saturday, 28 February 2026, 10:00-16:00

Part 3 unfolds across three dynamic sessions that consider pedagogy, monumentality, and sonic interpretation.

Session 1: Towards Other Pedagogies: Museum Education and Higher Learning

This morning panel features University of Pretoria lecturers and practitioners Dr. Adéle Adendorff, Prof. Johan Thom, Dr. Delene Human, Dr Obakeng Kgongoane, and Assoc. Prof. Rory du Plessis. Their teaching, research, and collaborative work have played a crucial role in activating One and the Many exhibition as a living pedagogical space. Moderated by Javett-UP’s curator for Education and Public Programmes Puleng Plessie, the conversation asks how exhibitions can move beyond display to become shared spaces of experimentation, reflection, and co-production, and what other pedagogies might emerge at the intersection of art, education, and public engagement.

Session 2: Monumental Gestures: Making Large-Scale Art and History

Javett-UP’s Interim Curatorial Director and exhibition curator Storm Janse van Rensburg leads a conversation with artists Ledelle Moe, Inga Somdyala, and Goldendean, whose contributions to the exhibition take on monumental proportions, inviting a discussion about why scale matters, and how it transforms narrative, space, and memory. This session interrogates how monumentality allows for the amplification of marginalised histories and the forging of new visual languages that challenge dominant frameworks of representation.

Session 3:  Vocal Sounds of the Coherent and the Non-coherent – Sounds Made in the Image of Violent Sonics by Gabi Motuba

Part 3 concludes with Gabi Motuba, Johannesburg based jazz singer and composer, presenting a sonic reflection of the One and The Many. She will be exploring what it may mean to interpret, sonically, the visual works exhibited at the Altar theme of the exhibition; to temporarily suspend the moment of sacred sounds and thinking about the effect of the ecological footprints of ‘violent sonics’ and the ways in which they have contorted and reshaped our relationship to ‘the sacred’. 

To join the conversation series, the public can RSVP on the Javett-UP website https://javettup.com/projects/one-and-the-many-conversation-series-2-3 . The events are free to attend.

Since opening in July 2025, the exhibition has allowed audiences to witness the diverse narratives of South Africa’s histories through the personal and collective recollections of artists. It contributes to the documentation, archiving and celebration of these recollections by offering fresh perspectives on the past, present and future.

The exhibition includes the works of 82 artists, drawn from three collections in the care of Javett-UP - the Bong Dhlomo Collection, the Javett Family Collection and the South 32 Collection. In dialogue with these works are those of six invited artists, Stephané E. Conradie, Goldendean, Ledelle Moe, Abdus Salaam, Inga Somdyala and Katlego Tlabela.

Images: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WVdjkNxw6I3wU8sPwoklPgblT3gfOvq6?usp=sharing 

Ends  

Issued by the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP)

For inquiries, please contact

Thakgatso Monisi (Audience Engagement and Communications Coordinator)

E-mail: [email protected]