Our Mothers Gardens

“We are the seeds of our foremothers’ wisdom and resilience.. Their memories, stories, ways of knowing , and cultural traditions of making, healing, and care live on in us through generations. Through embodied artistic practices and creative production artists honour the memory of our female lineages and preserve their legacy. This significant exhibition features eleven South African contemporary artists and their work across disciplines. Each remains to the mother, grandmother, and all matrilineal ancestors as seed-keepers germinating and sowing new seeds in their honour.”

• Exhibition Statement

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  ‘OUR MOTHERS GARDENS’ explores knowledge systems and representation of the sacred feminine women who respected nature, the Earth and her preservation.

  What can we learn from them to navigate the environmental crises and disharmony with self, and nature?

  Artists invite us to reflect, heal, and seek restoration innreruening to our mothers’ gardens.

  GAYA Habitat for Art & Healing, and Madlozi Contemporary Art Gallery are pleased to present this announcement a wonderful Spring celebration of art, cultural heritage, and community. Join us in the embrace our collective female ancestors to revive practices of restoration and belonging., .

• Curatorial Statement

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  The Curatorial Framework

  Earthing ourselves, our bodies and being is a form of summoning and embodying the spirit of our foremothers. We invite you participate in this connection with the natural world around us – rivers, oceans, forests, mountains, Earth, and each other.

  What are the critical knowledge systems, the stories, the rituals and forms of preserving self that have survived because women since time immemorial refused to let them disappear or be erased?

  Throughout the Global South including Africa, women have long been key custodians of seeds, water, medicine, food systems, ritual knowledge, weaving, storytelling and land stewardship. The "garden" is therefore not merely domestic—it is political, ecological, spiritual and ancestral.

  In many South Indian traditions, the Earth is honoured as Bhūmi Devi, the living ground from which all life emerges.

  African spiritual and cultural cosmologies in countries across the continent observe land is not property but relation. And trees, rivers and stories are revered as ancestors, forests preserved as sanctuaries for healing, and seeds honoured as promises made to future generations.

  There is no one story of womanhood. There are only gardens—cultivated, inherited, abandoned, reclaimed, and imagined. We invite you to share your expression - through your work and journey.

  Art Seeding Love in Deep Connection with Earth & the Divine Feminine

  GAYA Habitat for Art & Healing in association with MCA Contemporary art gallery presents a beautiful season of planting and harvesting community, joy, beauty, growth and wellbeing this women's month. You're invited to explore a varied programme of talks, events, performances, and an art exhibition in our gallery space. Join us in August and September 2026.

  Roots, Ecologies of Resistance & Seeds of Truth

  Seventy years after women marched in protest on the Union Buildings in 1956 we are proud to present a diverse and powerful Women's Month programme in 2026 honouring them alongside our own mothers and grandmothers. Their garden is our archive and classroom, our sanctuary and a battlefield they walked through, planting through us the seeds of future possibility.

  These are women whose lives, labour, resilience, wisdom, creativity and love continue to shape our individual and collective foundations, histories, and commitment to HER struggles and story. We honour their resilience and spirit.

  What are the critical knowledge systems that have survived because women refused to let them disappear or be erased?

  The Group Exhibition

  GAYA | Habitat for Art & Healing — this very special group exhibition runs from August through mid-September 2026 as a celebration of the living, sacred, and embodied feminine.

1. Catalogue

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2. Artist Biographies

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   01Mmakgoba Helen Sebidi

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   02Reshma Chhiba

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   03Lady Skollie

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   04Nandipha Jantjies

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   05Shanti Govender

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   06Sudhata Jurakan

   

   Sudhata Jurakan (b. 2001, Durban) is a Johannesburg-based artist working across painting, installation, and performance. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand (2023). Jurakan's practice began in rhythm before it found form. She started studying Hindustani classical music at six at Drisha Music Academy, and later trained in Kathak at Darpan Dance Studios, where she now teaches.

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   07Kirti Ranchod

   

   Kirti Ranchod is a neurologist and brain health specialist based in Johannesburg, South Africa with an interest in the field of neuroaesthetics including the impact of art on brain health. Kirti has had many teachers and sources of inspiration, both real and imagined, starting with her father who patiently taught her to paint as an eight-year old on Friday evenings.

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   08Arthur Dlamini

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   09Tanisha Bhana

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   10Lemogang Matlhong

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   11Nelisiwe Nkosi

   Artist biography and image coming soon.

   12Sheila Jarzin Levinson

   Artist biography and image coming soon.