{"id":356253,"date":"2026-03-20T14:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356253\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:40:11","slug":"in-a-damaged-gqeberha-museum-art-confronts-a-city-in-decay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356253\/","title":{"rendered":"In a damaged Gqeberha museum, art confronts a city in decay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside a municipal museum hall closed by electrical damage and flooding, a Nelson Mandela University master\u2019s exhibition is asking an uncomfortable question: what happens when the spaces that hold a city\u2019s cultural life begin to crumble?<\/p>\n

The Gqeberha museum is still waiting for repairs, but this young creative decided not to wait with it.<\/p>\n

Sum Nil, a multimedia exhibition by Taryn Jade, is installed in the Arts Hall of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum on Park Drive, a hall that has been partly closed since July 2025 following electrical damage and flooding in the basement.<\/p>\n

For Jade, who developed the exhibition as part of her master\u2019s research in visual art at the university, the setting became something close to confirmation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt very affirming that even in art spaces the conversation was relevant,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t only external to that zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Gill-BrokenArt\"Taryn Jade presents her Notice of Artistic Intention in the style of an official public notice. (Photo: Gillian McAinsh) <\/p>\n

The space, in theory, is still closed to the public, although the research underpinning the work was supported by the National Research Foundation and the Nelson Mandela University Postgraduate Research Scholarship. That tension between official closure and lived creative practice is not incidental.<\/p>\n

The exhibition title draws on the Latin sum nil, meaning \u201cI am nothing\u201d, but uses that phrase as a challenge rather than a defeat. Her supervisors, art Professor Vulindlela Nyoni and philosophy Professor Andrea Hurst, describe the framework as drawing on a Nietzschean account of nihilism: \u201cNothing is given from on high. If you want value in the world, you have to create it yourself. The exhibition gives viewers nothing except the responsibility to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Jade, the provocation is precisely the point. \u201cThe idea of saying \u2018I am nothing\u2019 asks the viewer: do you really think it is nothing? Because it always has the potential to become something.\u201d<\/p>\n

That potential takes physical form throughout the Arts Hall. The cracked surface of an empty suit, wrapped around an armature of rusted steel, maps something between a body and a city in collapse. In the darkened basement, against the white noise of an extractor fan, an egg made of asphalt collected from roadworks rubble in Central rests in an ornate beadwork nest.<\/p>\n

\"Gill-BrokenArt\"The artwork Structural Integrity shows an empty suit, full of cracks, signifying not only a body but also a city hollowed out by neglect. The work is on display in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum\u2019s Arts Hall. (Photo: Gillian McAinsh) <\/p>\n

Jade\u2019s materials throughout carry the weight of local history: steel for the region\u2019s automotive industry, wool for the harbour\u2019s export past, ceramics for the Eastern Cape\u2019s long tradition of clay production, and asphalt lifted directly from the city\u2019s own potholes and construction debris. <\/p>\n

Even the manganese ore<\/a> is a Gqeberha reference; its trucks are blamed for destroying streets and the windblown ore dust for polluting the sea air.<\/p>\n

Birds appear throughout the exhibition, and their presence is deliberate. \u201cThere is something really poetic about pigeons to me,\u201d Jade says. \u201cThey\u2019re also called doves so it\u2019s all a matter of symbolism and perception.\u201d They speak to the full variety of urban dwellers living in Gqeberha and carry a quiet warning about the biases people bring with them: \u201cYou might be a pest in someone else\u2019s eyes, or you might be a symbol of true peace and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knitted elements, made collaboratively with friends and family, run around the basement installation, Knot Nothing, alongside sounds that draw visitors deeper into the space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want my voice to be the only one speaking about dereliction or the state of the city. I\u2019m just adding to that conversation,\u201d Jade said, and that instinct extends to the artists she has placed in dialogue with her own work. <\/p>\n

\"Gill-BrokenArt\"The artist descends into the basement of the Arts Hall which features her installation, Knot Nothing. (Photo: Fanjan Combrink) <\/p>\n

Art museum pieces by George Pemba and Fred Page showing parts of old Port Elizabeth appear alongside newer works by Tim Hopwood, Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta and Joff, and pop culture voices including Shitty City PE, Twiza and Boiling Point.<\/p>\n

Museum director Emma O\u2019Brien describes the collaboration as a negotiation born of crisis. Professor Nyoni asked if she might consider the unusual request of permitting a postgraduate student to exhibit at the museum. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe building was vulnerable. We were short-staffed and dealing with repairs. But suddenly, within that moment, art was being made,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

There was a condition, however: Jade had to work with pieces from the museum\u2019s permanent collection. \u201cThese artists tell a story about a city over a vast period of time but, through Taryn\u2019s lens, in secondary commentary, she is bringing them back to life again, saying, I see you, I see myself, I see the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visitors are invited to contribute to the exhibition, with the wall at the entrance asking: what does a good future in Gqeberha require? Handwritten responses, among them \u201cgood governance\u201d, \u201cUbuntu\u201d, and \u201cpromises made are promises kept\u201d, already cover the marble surface above it.<\/p>\n

\"Gill-BrokenArt\"Visitors to the Sum Nil exhibition are asked to respond to the question: what does a good future in Gqeberha require? (Photo: Gillian McAinsh) <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you expect art to fix everything, you\u2019ll be disappointed,\u201d Jade said. \u201cBut it can create the moment where people decide to care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jade said the decision to stage the exhibition in a municipal museum rather than a university gallery was itself a statement: \u201cIf I put everything I\u2019m talking about in too clean or private a space, then am I actually participating in the city I\u2019m making art about?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jade will lead a walkabout of Sum Nil on Saturday, 28 March at 10am. Entry is free. The exhibition runs until 18 May 2026, open weekdays from 9am to 4pm and Saturdays from 9.30am to 12.30pm. Selected works are for sale. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Park Drive, Gqeberha. DM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inside a municipal museum hall closed by electrical damage and flooding, a Nelson Mandela University master\u2019s exhibition is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2273,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,161645,161647,161646],"class_list":["post-356253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nelson-mandela-metropolitan-art-museum","tag-taryn-jade","tag-urban-decay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}