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WHO GOES HUNTING DOES NOT COUGH, is a group exhibition and a series of public events curated by Kisito Assangni for Pixelache Helsinki, and realised in collaboration with the Finnish Museum of Technology and with EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition at the Museum of Technology is on display from 12.9. to 11.10.2026 featuring works by: Kongo Astronauts, Yto Barrada, Neïl Beloufa, Theo Eshetu, Joseph Ijoyemi, Mouna Jemal Siala, Miatta Kawinzi, Ali Akbar Mehta, Marek Pluciennik, Johan Thom, Eden Tinto Collins, Sofia Yala, Oliver Whitehead.

In the words of curator Kisito Assangni:

“The title Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough, is derived from an African proverb suggesting that, despite the significance and positioning of projects, you have to let the results speak for themselves.
Especially, in a practice where the process holds as much importance as the outcome, and where the notion of an unfinished, remixable project is central. Media art, through its inherently interdisciplinary, participatory, and technologically responsive nature, has the capacity to radically reshape the future of the museum––transforming it from a static repository of objects into a dynamic site for the co-production of knowledge. The exhibition introduces the public to the works of international artists from different contexts who take on the concepts of power relations, decolonial aesthetics, affective spaces, resilient communities, and new technologies. They reflect about new visualities conducive to look towards the future of the museum as a lived experience. Combining film, video games, sound, photography, installation and performance, most of the pieces in the show embrace a sense of reinvention and agency with the aim to shape various interpretative environments. They speak to the informed viewer as much as the uninitiated.

This exhibition is an experimental platform for critical reflection and non-hegemonic world-views. It transcends cultural hierarchies, aligning with what theorist Irit Rogoff in her 2000 book Terra Infirma calls “criticality” –– a practice that constantly questions and destabilizes the authority of knowledge production. This shift opens up new interstices and spaces of intersection where diverse forms of knowledge, from indigenous epistemologies to speculative futurisms, can coexist and interact. By challenging linear narratives and fixed hierarchies of values, media art could be the saving grace of the museum of the future. As society becomes increasingly mediated by technology, media art offers a compelling pathway for museums to remain relevant, accessible, and reflective of contemporary life.”

To what extent can media art allow us to shape the future of the museum, and set a greater model for transversal knowledges? Intertwined with the museum, media art marks a profound disruption of the representative regime of aesthetic experiences and objects through its nature to question global cultural systems. Technology establishes a novel infrastructure that affords virtually limitless possibilities for artistic practice within a hyperconnected, post-digital world.

The Museum of Technology about the project:

“In recent years The Finnish Museum of Technology has strengthened its position at the crossroads of technology, art and science. That is why this collaboration with Pixelache and EMMA is especially significant: it brings together technological heritage and media art in ways that open fresh perspectives on important issues that affect us all.“

Kisito Assangni’s selection of works expounds the critical potential media art has to shape museums physically and philosophically, in a digital world striving for new ethical standards, equity and inclusion. By fostering those liminal, transdisciplinary spaces between science, technology, and embodied experience, media art redefines the museum-space as an agent of epistemic plurality and future-oriented thinking.

EMMA Museum states about the collaboration:

“Pixelache’s event at EMMA opens the art collections to the public from a new angle and strengthens the museum’s role in the field of media art. The perspectives of Pixelache—an electronic arts pioneer—and curator Kisito Assangni bring new voices to the fore and situate the media art collections in a topical context.”

Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough is part of Another Story, a long term project designed by Egle Oddo and supported by Kone Foundation. Over the course of a three-year program, three invited curators delve into international media art archives to curate annual exhibitions and public programme.
Initiated to instigate emerging trends and explore new narratives, the project aims to critically examine contemporary media art practices and compare curatorial approaches. By showcasing the evolving field, the project’s ambition is to create meaningful connections to diverse global archives, and to unleash valuable repositories of knowledge that warrants further exploration and revitalization.

Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough is realised in collaboration with Finnish Museum of Technology, EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Partners: The Embassy of Italy in Helsinki, The Embassy of the Republic of Tunisia in Helsinki, The The Italian Cultural Institute in Helsinki, The French Institute in Finland, and Villa Eläintarha. Supporting Another Story three-year project: Kone Foundation, The Arts Promotion Centre, The Department of Culture and Leisure of Helsinki City.

Pixelache Helsinki is a transdisciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research and activism. It is an association of artists, cultural producers, thinkers and activists interested in experimental interaction and electronics, code-based art and culture, grassroot organising & networks, renewable energy production/use, participatory art, open-source cultures, bioarts and art-science culture, alternative economy cultures, politics and economics of media/technology, audiovisual culture, media literacy & ecology and engaging with environmental issues. The word ‘pikseliähky’ (translated into English as “pixelache”) describes the feeling that results from an overdose of digital media content. Pixelache Helsinki is coordinated by the Finnish non-profit cultural association Piknik Frequency ry.

Kisito Assangni is an independent curator and consultant based between London, Paris and Togo. His research explores the circulation of images, postcolonial dynamics, and emerging forms of subjectivity. Through his curatorial projects, he examines how narratives are constructed, displaced, and transformed across contexts. Assangni was the Director of TIME is Love Screening (2008-2020), an internationally touring video art festival. His discursive public programs and exhibitions have been presented around the world, including the Venice Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles, Ben Uri Museum London, Es Baluard Museum, Palma, National Center for Contemporary Art Moscow. Assangni has participated widely in lectures, research collaborations, and symposia at institutions such as Whitechapel Gallery London, Apexart New York, Palais de Tokyo Paris, Pixelache Helsinki, Cambridge School of Art, University of Pretoria South Africa.

Exhibition Team

Curator: Kisito Assangni
Project Leader: Egle Oddo
Pixelache Executive Director: Raisa Veikkola
Communications Coordinator: Selma Mataich
Technical Design: Mreethmandir Gunjan Kumar Roy, Leevi Toija, Joshua Cockroft
Graphic Design: Nikita Gavrilenko
Critical essay by Dr Greg de Cuir Jr.

Group exhibition: September 12– October 11, 2026
Vernissage September 11 at 18:00
Museum of Technology

EMMA
Public programme: September 16, 2026
Screening at 15:00 and live performance at 17:30
EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art
The event needs registration, limited spots available. Register here

Robin Rhode, African Sisyphus, 2024, digital print on archival paper, 121,5 x 91,5cm. Courtesy of the artist.

The Soil & Water project keeps evolving and we are happy to announce its inclusion in this year’s Vrystaat Kunstefees (Free State Arts Festival|) from 7-11 July 2027. The Festival is held annually in Bloemfontein and this year its overall curator is MC Roodt. More information on the Festival can be found here: https://vrystaatkunstefees.co.za/en/vrystaat-arts-festival-2026/

Soil & Water is an international arts program collaboratively developed and curated by Prof. Johan Thom (University of Pretoria), Dr. Basak Senova (Vienna), and the NIROX Foundation in South Africa. It proposes a dynamic, modular platform emerging from the Cradle of Humankind to rethink, reimagine, and reconfigure our fragile relationship with soil and water. Framed by ecology, storytelling, and material culture, it recognises that these relationships are culturally embedded, not merely scientific. The project seeks to generate ideas and actions for the sustainable transformation of our engagement with the natural world, its resources, and our place within it for future generations. More information on the ever-evolving project can be found here: https://www.soilandwater.net/

The Soil & Water project will be represented at the Free State Arts Festival by a smaller selection of artworks curated by Johan Thom and shown daily at the Scholtz Hall (Bloemfontein University Campus) from 9:00-18:00.

Soil & Water: Freestate Crossings includes works by the following national and international artists:

Barbara Putz-Plecko (AT)
Maria Lanz (SE)
Ramesh Daha (AT)
Lundhal and Seitl (SE)
Jesper Just (DK)
Jaco van Schalkwyk (ZA)
Robin Rhode (ZA)
Seretse Moletsane (ZA)
Alet Pretorius(ZA)
Senzo Masondo (ZA)
Tshepiso Mahooe (ZA)
Johan Thom (ZA)
Jeremy Wafer (ZA)
The Waterstories Community Engagement Project (ZA), University of Pretoria

Many thanks to Basak Senova for curating the show & Oya Silbery and her team in Cyprus for all the hard work and support. Also a special word of thanks to the people who helped me to visit and work at the spaces where I produced these drawings. These include Angela Vettese & Simone Rossi at the IUAV Faculty of Art and Design in Venice in 2025 & Casa Wabi & their team in Mexico in 2024. I must add the Clair and Edoardo Villa Foundation here too.

The experiential and narrative aspects of the arts can fundamentally shift how we act on the climate change crisis by transforming meaning, not just delivering facts | When the water crisis threatens the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, one of Earth’s earliest homes of modern humans, facts alone wont shift our behaviour. Across the world, we already know the science, yet we fail to act. South African artist Johan Thom shows how the arts can change what water, soil, and survival actually mean to us. Drawing on personal history, Darwin’s ideas, and years of artistic experimentation, he reveals how beauty, choice, and imagination shape the core decisions that determine our collective future. While the sciences may diagnose the problem, the arts help us feel and experience our changing world in different ways, reminding us that meaning, not data, drives human action | South African artist Johan Thom works across performance, video, and installation to probe the human condition in a changing world. As curator of the forthcoming Soil & Water exhibition at NIROX, he brings artists together to engage with ecology, resilience, and our shared climate future. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx


TEDx Johannesburg presentsCOUNTDOWN25 October 2025


TEDxJohannesburg Countdown reimagines what a TEDx experience can be. Focused on accelerating climate action, this two-day journey begins in the vibrant energy of Sandton and culminates in the tranquil beauty of NIROX Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind.

Day 2, at NIROX, unfolds in nature’s calm, where TEDx talks, performances, and creative activations will ignite ideas for a better, greener, and more resilient future.

Grounded in South African realities, shaped by Global South perspectives, and tuned to planetary frequencies, this gathering will spotlight local solutions with global power. It forms part of a worldwide drumbeat toward two major climate moments: the G20 climate meetings in Johannesburg and COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

As one of only 18 TEDx events globally selected as an official TED Countdown Anchor, we carry forward the energy of the Countdown Summit recently held in Nairobi and bring it into a uniquely South African, globally connected context. We are proud to hold this moment with care and courage.


Speakers
Crispian OliverShaping climate leadership
Lebogang MulaisiChampioning workers in a changing climate
Clyde MallinsonModelling a renewable future
Viaksha MohabirSouth Africa in global energy futures
Leanne Emery-HunterFinancing resilience
Gamuchirai MutezoTurning waste into energy
Taylen ReddyYouth for environmental justice
Tebogo MakhubelaAncient clues to climate futures
Charles Mpofu Cranes as wetland sentinels
Steve CarverSeeds of resilience 
Jen Van Den BusscheDignity in water and sanitation 
Sifiso GumbiFrom waste picker to pioneer
Leonie JoubertStories of climate change
Nokulinda MkhizeAncestral wisdom, future balance
Johan ThomThe art of meaning, Soil & Water

Performances
Christophe Fellay & Thulisile Binda
Rhythms of a fragile planet

Oupa Sibeko
Inland Ocean

Music by
Muneyi
Itai Hakim

Gates open at 10h00on Saturday, 25 October
Tickets

To a greener, fairer, thriving future.
 
NIROX is a private not-for-profit foundation to benefit the arts
All income is used to maintain the grounds, the artist residency programme, and artist support. NIROX Foundation is dedicated to bringing exceptional cultural experiences to the world through commitment to quality programming and artistic innovation
aiming to enrich lives and foster a deeper appreciation for the arts in all its forms.No food, drinks, pets, gazebos, cooler boxes or sporting equipment may be brought into the park. No camping chairs or beach umbrellas may be brought into the amphitheatre;
Hay bales will be provided for seating; picnic blankets and sun-hats are recommended
Entry and use of the facilities is entirely at the visitor’s own riskNIROX has no responsibility for injury or loss of any kind, howsoever arising
For more information, including updates on the concert program and featured artists, visitwww.niroxarts.com.NIROX lies in the Kromdraai Valley, which is expanding for visitors’ enjoyment and local community development with diverse initiatives, including:
The Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture at NIROX
The Kromdraai Impact Hub, creative residency for collaboration and social impactand
Farmhouse58, Accommodation PartnerFor further informationvilla-legodi.com kromdraai hub.com farmhouse58.co wellness58.com

NIROX is pleased to present new and recent works by South African artist Johan Thom, exploring the material relationship between the tactile, time, and (negative) space.

The exhibition is structured in two parts, split across two venues. Held in NIROX’s residency workshop, part one includes a recent installation — Time after Time (2023) — in which an automated brick and bronze skull constantly rotate, narrowly missing each other. Across the road, at the Kromdraai Impact Hub, Thom presents three new works: Will you still be mine? (The weight of body in ice), a large photograph documenting his performance at Casa Wabi, Mexico, earlier this year; Dwell (the weight of my body as a brick), produced in collaboration with Modern Art Projects South Africa (MAPSA); and LH+RH+LHRH (Grasp), a major installation of over a thousand individual clay forms.

Dwell is a large replica of a red building brick, such is commonly used for the construction of homes, shelters, and buildings in South Africa. Made to the weight of the artist, it is a deceptively complex minimalist gesture in which the body is shown to be a contested, uneasy home — at once a space of ‘dwelling’ (of knowing and being) whilst also forming part of the skewed spatio-political and economic organisation of the contemporary South African landscape.

In turn, LH+RH+LHRH (Grasp) (2024) is a site-specific installation that gives three- dimensional form to the negative space generated by ‘grasping’ a lump of clay. The result is an overwhelming number of near alien, bone-like fragments, arranged in three minimalist, 10 x 3m rectangular grids.

In keeping with the context of the Cradle of Humankind, this arrangement is reminiscent of the anthropological/archeological sites nearby. Here, the act of grasping becomes a metaphor for that which remains unknown or undiscovered, suggesting that the tactile and material remain largely dormant, fecund repositories for rethinking our partial knowledge of the world.

RSVP: sven(at)niroxarts.com

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication, with essays by Dr Sikho Siyotula (Research Associate, UP), Dr. Wayne Binitie (Associate Lecturer, Camberwell College of Art, London) and Sven Christian (Curator, NIROX), published by the Villa- Legodi Center for Sculpture in partnership with UJ Press. Also included in the exhibition is “Grasp (Fragment),” an educational kit developed for the tactile exploration and teaching of sculpture, in collaboration with Prof. Jenni Louwrens (Associate Professor in Visual Studies, School of the Arts, UP), The student Gallery at the Javett UP, the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust and the Villa-Legodi Center for Sculpture. The artworks on exhibition have been generously supported by a number of organisations: NIROX Foundation; Villa-Legodi Center for Sculpture; Modern Art Projects South Africa; Casa Wabi, Mexico; The National Research Foundation of South Africa; The School of the Arts, University of Pretoria; Kalashnikovv Gallery

Figure details: Johan Thom, Will you still be mine (Del Mar#1), photographic production still form a performance in Casa Wabi, Mexico, 2024 (Sizes: 210 x 110cm).

One night mid 2005 I crawled over the Nelson Mandela Bridge into the heart of the city of Johannesburg for a durational performance. I was accompanied by the artist Christian Nerf who hosted me for a 24 hour residency at the now defunct City and Suburban Studios. Barefoot and wearing only old jeans, I also covered myself with an cheap blanket that had been torn apart by dogs. I slowly entered the Johannesburg CBD like so many of the city’s unseen citizens would – with nothing. It was literally freezing (0 degrees centigrade) that night and fearing frostbite I nearly gave up a few times. But by midnight I finally made it to the other side of the bridge. It took over two hours to complete the action.

The work was never exhibited or made public until now. I do so now in honor of the artist Wiliam Pope L. who sadly passed away on 23 December this year. He was a great inspiration to me and, in particular, this artwork was made in response to his crawling pieces of the 1970’s. Like in many of Pope’s crawling pieces I carried an object in one hand, a video camera in my case. The camera stopped recording after 12min 26sec.

Rest in piece William, your work mattered.

Video still: ‘Crawling (The city of gold)’, 2005, Johan Thom. #art#contemporaryart#williampopel#performanceart#africanart#contemporaryperformanceart#crawling#southafricanart

The Centre for Asian Studies in Africa and the Visual Arts Division at the University of Pretoria present  ‘Unhoused Memories’ at the Javett-UP – a creative collaboration between acclaimed poet Sudeep Sen (India) and visual artist Johan Thom (South Africa).

Please join us for an afternoon of readings, short-film screenings, live-art, discussion & book-signing.

Venue: The Javett-UP Auditorium
Date: Thursday 11 May 2023
Time: 14:30-15:30

For this talk Sudeep Sen, the globally-acclaimed author, will read poems from his latest book, Anthropocene (Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize winner) and his two books-in-progress, The Whispering Anklets and Red. Sen is currently the international fellow & writer / artist-in-residence at the Nirox Foundation in South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind. [www.sudeepsen.org]

Johan Thom is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Fine Art, School of the Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria. Thom holds a PhD in Fine Arts from The Slade School of Fine Arts (UCL) on a Commonwealth Scholarship. Thom works across a variety of media including sculpture, video, performance, drawing, printmaking and photography and has exhibited extensively – both locally and globally.
[https://johanthom.com/]

Thom and Sen are currently collaborating on producing creative responses to each others’ works through the use of text, video, recorded sound and live performance.  

Javett-UP Auditorium, Thursday, May 11, 2023 | 2:30pm
RSVP: Email: connect@javettup.com or bookings@javettup.com | Telephone: +27 (0)12 420 3960

I am exhibiting works as par of FNB Art Joburg Fair (https://artjoburg.com) in South Africa with Kalashnikovv Gallery (https://kalashnikovv.com/). A large-scale installation, ‘Houseboat #2’ (shown below) and a single related bronze work ‘Masked’ (also shown below).

In Houseboat#2 the form of the boat/ vessel is synonym for an expanded definition of the home. Here the home is understood as a space of dwelling that, other than a permanent brick and mortar built structure, moves through the world as a provisional, ever-changing form. This construction is as much a physical extension of my body as it is a site and a vessel through which I traverse the world even as I negotiate my sense of belonging as part thereof.  Houseboat #2 is made from pine wood, a widely available and non-permanent means of sculptural construction. Materially speaking pinewood is light and easily shaped or joined together. It is typically used for building applications such as roof trusses, fences, decks and other non – or – semi-permanent structures. As such it is an ideal means to materially expand the self (the body, the psyche) into a number of aesthetic forms that are always only provisional even though they appear fixed or permanent.  

For Houseboat #2 I have mounted a small museum-style display cabinet near the stern of the vessel. The cabinet is filled with a found collection of 35mm photographic slides comprising visuals materials (such as examples of artworks, architecture, design) all related to the teaching of undergraduate modules in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. Questions of belonging, of changing technology and of decolonial thoughts about art and art education in our current context are all brought to bear upon one another.    

   

This piece simply called ‘Masked’ (2020) also showing with Kalashnikovv Gallery as part of FNB Art Joburg. In plain terms a portrait of Nelson Mandela cast in bronze and patinaed, standing slightly larger than life-size at 30 x 20 x 16cm. A work in dialogue with the artwork Houseboat #2.

The mask may be understood as a discarded object found as part of the journey into the archive of our collective memories. The piece was made by modeling the face in clay, casting it in wax form and then partially covering the wax with South African newspaper clippings dating from 1994 & a sisal rope netting. During the process the wax and final bronze cast slowly became distorted. This is a normal part of the casting process but here I think it closely analogous to the way in the archive becomes distorted, deteriorating materially and taking on new, often unintended meanings as we engage with it.

Most importantly for me the net is actually the mask here (i.e the tools by which we interact with archival items), a form of layering that simultaneously obscures and enables meaning. The more straightforward reading of the recognizable face as mask (Mandela) refers to an artwork by Kendell Geers, ‘Portrait of the artist as a young man’ (1993) that, in keeping with questions raised in Houseboat 2, formed a part of my art education. Despite such readings on my part, I do think that today for many South Africans the legacy of Nelson Mandela is an immensely complex matter. More to the point, his image, the face and the surface of the thing, may function as a means of masking, of ritually hiding behind as people advance their particular agendas in the nasty carnival that is contemporary South African politics. And I choose my words carefully here to invoke the writings of Achille Mbembe, in particular his thoughts on the role and function of ritual in the postcolony, the intimacy of tyranny that form part of our daily lives.