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Imbedded within the Gallery’s collection works in this intimate space, Bronwyn Katz expands upon the sensory experience in the Gallery, exploring interactions between the visual and the aural, taking cues from Katz’s own personal relationship to language and the voice. The titles of the works are based on four click consonants from endangered southern African languages such as Khoekhoe, and these form the basis of an imagined structure, rooted in historical memory and contemporary cultural erasure."

In contrast to the rich figurative scenes depicted in the collection paintings, Katz’s work hints at a language of minimal abstract sculpture. Yet the works are also definitively tethered to social and political context; here, the endangerment of Indigenous languages brought through the erasures of colonialism. The speaking of language is a live social process that also brings forth deep cultural histories and connections. Remembering a language through creative re-imagination both evokes the sensory experience of the speaking body (face, tongue, mouth) and renders it partially absent. Together the Gallery’s paintings and sculptures are imaginings that bring forth a sense of historical memory, through very different sensory experiences and layers of signification.