Central SA
Questions of identity and exclusion take centre stage in new Bloemfontein exhibition─── ZENANDE MPAME 11:00 Tue, 30 Jun 2026
“Art allows people to have a visceral experience. It can take them into spaces they wouldn’t ordinarily enter and challenge them to think differently,” says South African artist André Rose.
Questions of who belongs, who is excluded, and how society remembers its past will take centre stage when a South African artist officially opens his solo exhibition, Be[long], at Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein on Tuesday, 7 July.
The exhibition, which runs until Sunday, 16 August, reflects on themes of place, belonging and longing through a collection of photographs captured across locations where Rose has lived, worked and travelled over the past five years.
Through familiar landscapes, everyday objects and subtle visual cues, the Durban-based lens artist explores how relationships with space are shaped by history, inequality and personal experience.
Titled Moruti (teacher/pastor), this work reflects on care as something active and relational. Photo supplied
“I wanted to explore what it means to belong to a people group, what it means to belong to a country, and what it means to long for something,” said Rose. “The exhibition asks us to question how people define who belongs to a space and who doesn’t, and what legitimises someone to be in a space.
“I hope the exhibition challenges people not to look straight through a situation simply, but to engage with it, allow themselves to be challenged by it, and then take action.”
The exhibition arrives at a time when debates around migration, borders and belonging dominate national conversations. Rose hopes visitors will engage critically with these issues while recognising that perspectives can easily shift depending on where one stands.
Produced using both analogue and digital photography, Be[long] showcases Rose’s fascination with the materiality of the photographic process. Much of the work was created using a Holga camera; an inexpensive plastic camera originally designed for working-class communities alongside digital images captured when circumstances demanded.
Among the featured works is Artificial Intimacy, which questions whether modern online relationships represent genuine human connection or merely its digital imitation.
Convergence: the work reflects on shared spaces where differences meet and overlap. Photo supplied
Other photographs explore environmental concerns, memory, and historical erasure, including images captured in Namibia’s ancient desert landscapes and works that reflect on forgotten First Nations histories.
The exhibition presents photographs in a variety of formats, including hand-printed analogue prints, digital works and images displayed on fine art paper, photographic paper, wood, metal and fabric.
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