https://visarts.ucsd.edu/news-events/20251023_nolanoswalddennis.html
October 23rd,
6:00 p.m.
SME 149, Structural & Materials Engineering, UC San Diego
Nolan Oswald Dennis is an artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonization, questioning histories of space and time through system-specific interventions. They hold a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and a Master’s degree in Art, Culture, and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Their work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, Swiss Institute in New York, Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, and Gasworks in London.
They have been featured in group exhibitions at FRONT Triennial (Cleveland), Lagos Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, MACBA (Barcelona), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Young Congo Biennale, among others. They are a member of artist groups NTU and Index Literacy Program, research associate with the VIAD Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg, and a member of the Edouard Glissant Art Fund Scientific Committee.
On Friday, October 24, Nolan’s solo exhibition Demonstrations(i) opens at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. At the exhibition’s center is Isivivane, an ongoing collaborative project using a process of scanning and reproducing rock collections from geology museums and university collections from around the world. Manufactured daily by a 3D-printer on site, the new rocks become part of what the artist refers to as a “Black Earth Library,” an effort which has arisen from discussions with geologists and geology museum curators centered on restitution and repatriation of culturally-significant objects.
Isivivane was first commissioned as part of Reverse Forward and All at Once, curated by Gabi Ngcobo for INSITE Commonplaces. Established in 2021, Commonplaces is a curatorial platform for producing work with artists and communities, commissioned locally in different regions of the world, including Johannesburg, South Africa; Lima, Peru; and the transborder region of San Diego, California and Baja California, Mexico.
https://insiteart.org/
