Andile Dyalvane participated in the 2022 Tankwa Artscape Residency in the Tankwa Karoo in March, where he collaborated with Nkosenathi Ernie Koela, Cebolenkosi Zuma and Nkuthazo Alexis Dyalvane as part of the Kwasukasukela Arts Collective. The group’s activities encompassed ceramics, land art, song, sound and movement that engaged with the site’s unique desert geology, long history of migration and ancestral heritage.

Located in the Stonehenge Private Reserve, the Tankwa Artscape Residency encourages collaboration and conversation between artists prompted by a landscape that is both untouched and deeply imbued with history.

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Dyalvane’s vocabulary of graphic symbols, which featured most significantly in his 2021 iThongo collection of ceramic seats, played a central role in his artistic interventions during the residency. Under the title Uyalezo – Song of the Desert River, he recreated his symbolic shapes using clay, volcanic rock and sand as he channelled messages from his ancestral spirits. These monumental land artworks have been left intact on the desert floor as an offering to “future ancestors and those living through us as an embodiment of the hope we carry”.

Above (left to right): Dancer Cebolenkosi Zuma, ceramic artist Andile Dyalvane, and musician Nkosenathi Ernie Koela. Below: Dyalvane and Nkuthazo Alexis Dyalvane.