Inaugural Hazendal Festival | Soil Edition set for October

Hazendal Festival I Soil Edition curator Khanyisile Mbongwa. Image supplied

From a two-day symposium, to artist installations and performances, children's workshops, live music, wine and dining experiences, the three-day event will engage all the senses through a series of unique experiences.

The Hazendal Festival Hazendal Wine Estate has invited eminent curator and brave visionary Khanyisile Mbongwa, former curator for Liverpool Biennial, to curate the inaugural edition of the Hazendal Festival, which will be dedicated to the incredible life-fostering organic material – Soil.

Mbongwa’s edition of the Hazendal Festival will engage with our conceptions of geological time in the spirit of holding space for both grief and love – working with soil as an archive that holds shared stories of the past, present and future.

The Soil Edition will be guided by the Nguni proverb “Belele nje, Abathulunga”, which in English translates to “They may be asleep but they are not quiet” and in Afrikaans to “Hulle slaap dalk, maar hulle is nie stil nie”.

Mbongwa comments, “The commissioned works of the invited artists, scientists, spiritual healers and cultural innovators interlock to understand the fertility of soil from the varying practitioners' points of view”.

The special commissions include a sculptural piece from Thania Petersen, a live intervention from Sethembile Msezane, an installation from Sisonke Papu, a wine-tasting intervention by Queezy Babaz and the presentation of the special edition Hazendal MCC label designed by Athi-Patra Ruga.

“These interventions are site-specific, engaging with the land and the soil from the practitioners' own work with spirituality. As such, we invite those who come to the festival to be a part of the space, pivoting between being members of the audience and witnesses of encounters,” adds the curator.

The festival will also feature a gallery exhibition with works by celebrated contemporary South African artists including Lady Skollie, Inga Somdyala, Warren Maroon and Stephané E. Conradie.

Hazendal Wine Estate’s managing director Maxim Voloshin comments that “for Hazendal the notion of land is about responsibility – to work on and with the land towards a shared hopeful future … If Soil is to be seen through the lens of fertility, actions of hope are the fertilisers of repair”.

Tickets are available on the Hazendal Wine Estate website.