Simnikiwe Buhlungu: hygrosummons (iter.01), Chisenhale Gallery, exhibition review: ‘A meditation on water’
Simnikiwe Buhlungu’s hygrosummons (iter.01), 2024. Installation view. Photograph: Andy Keate
Simnikiwe Buhlungu’s first solo exhibition, currently on at the Chisenhale Gallery, is a meditation on water in all its forms.
The Amsterdam-based South African artist draws together installation, sculpture and sound to trace the cultural and ecological roles of that most essential of substances, H2O.
If you’ve ever had to deal with a leaky roof, you’ll be grabbed by the throat as you enter the gallery by a display of plastic buckets partly-filled with liquid of variable murk.
These humble objects will, for many, evoke the blind panic that arises when water ‘misbehaves’.
Indeed, water’s misdemeanours and rebellions are principal themes of the show.
Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Tswaing (sample), 2024. Photograph: Andy Keate
We engage with the hygrometer, a scientific instrument used to measure humidity, but then efforts at subjugation and demarcation of natural fluid are subverted by humidity-warped doors, curled paper and first-person textual accounts of water’s meandering adventures.
We learn that the contents of the buckets themselves have their origins in puddles near and far – Soshanguve, South Africa; Fiorano Modense, Italy; and Bow, London.
These temporary repositories of molecules move across continents with storms and currents beyond human command.
As background to the physical objects on display is a haunting soundtrack of zithers that respond to fluctuations in humidity levels.
This compelling exhibition reminds us how little people really control the natural world, but how deeply engrained it is in our cultures and lives.
Simnikiwe Buhlungu: hygrosummons (iter.01) runs until 3 November at Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Road, E3 5QZ.