These three rooms in a row used to serve as the reception room, meeting room, and principalʼs office respectively of the former Ichinomiya Central Nursing School. What kind of conversations took place there? Nyakallo Maleke, an artist and writer based in South Africa, has worked in a variety of media, including installation, drawing, printmaking, performance, and literature. Among her works are picture scroll-like drawings, where Maleke draws abstract patterns on thin sheets of paper and plastic using embroidery, pastels, and charcoal, which resemble beautiful and delicate stories spun out of poems and words.

In this space, where natural light enters, clotheslines are stretched so that they run through three rooms, while the space is composed of words, drawings, and found objects supported by this clothesline. One can well imagine a certain continuity, fragmentation, movement, and circulation of space and time through the inside and outside of these rooms, reciprocal spaces that adjoin each other, or Malekeʼs own movements from Johannesburg to Ichinomiya City.

The title This place is in my head all day also suggests that Nyakallo Maleke has long fantasized about the actual exhibition. So delicate that it looks as if it might fall apart when touched, this work perhaps also symbolizes the dreams that disappear when we awaken, or the structure of the real world, human emotions, and the transience of life.

Maleke describes her approach as intuitive, personal, and spun out of everyday life. Now that the world has realized how fragile everyday life can be, how can we tune our ears to listen to the stories of the small and vulnerable found in her installations?

Selected Works & Awards

2022

Scenorama, Javett Art Centre UP, Pretoria, South Africa

Time Is A Broken Umbrella, AVA Gallery and KZNSA Gallery in collaboration with FORMS Gallery, AVA Gallery/KZNSA Gallery, South Africa

2021

Territories Between Us, Iziko Museums, Cape Town, South Africa

The Cultural Life of Spaces, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• This place is in my head all day, 2022
• Photo: ToLoLo studio