The abandoned fields of the rural Eastern Cape have become the inspiration for iYunivesithi Walter Sisulu academic and ceramic artist Sonwabiso Ngcai’s latest body of work.
Ngcai’s exhibition, Xa Umhlaba Uthetha (When the Earth Speaks), presented at the National Arts Festival at the Carinus Arts Centre in Makhanda, explores the changing relationship between people and the land.
For Ngcai, the works are deeply personal, rooted in childhood memories of rural life and the lessons passed down by his grandmother.
“I was raised in a rural community where farming and cultivating the land formed an essential part of everyday life,” he said.
His grandmother introduced him to agriculture, teaching him not only how to work the soil but about its connection to identity, memory and community.
Over the years, however, Ngcai said, he had returned to his home region to find a gradual decline in agricultural activity, with fields that once sustained families increasingly lying abandoned.
That change prompted him to use ceramics to reflect on what had been lost and what could still be renewed.
The exhibition featured primarily wall-based ceramic works, accompanied by sculptural pieces displayed on plinths.
Xa Umhlaba Uthetha continues Ngcai’s exploration of land, labour and belonging, but places particular emphasis on the condition of the earth itself.
Its title presents the earth as an active voice, speaking through “its scars, fractures, textures and cycles of renewal”.
The works also engage with environmental concerns including drought, soil degradation and climate change.
At the centre of the series is the seed, which Ngcai uses as a symbol of potential, resilience and regeneration.
The standing corn kernel, another recurring motif, references sustenance, growth and humanity’s dependence on the land.
Rather than simply depicting landscapes, Ngcai uses clay itself to carry those ideas.
“I transform the ceramic surface into a metaphorical landscape,” he said.
The works feature heavily textured surfaces, layers of cracking and textile-like impressions created using ferric chloride, oxides, slips and glazes.
For Ngcai, clay provides a way of exploring transformation, decay and regeneration while remaining physically connected to the earth that inspired the work.
His artistic practice is closely linked to his academic work and identity as a Xhosa artist, with his interest in indigenous knowledge systems, material culture and ceramics informing both his research and teaching at WSU.
The university has supported his development through access to studio facilities, kilns and technical resources.
Producing the exhibition while balancing teaching, administration and research required discipline, Ngcai said, with evenings, weekends and time outside his academic responsibilities often spent in the studio.
Exhibiting at the National Arts Festival gave him an opportunity to take those reflections beyond the university and into a public space.
He hopes audiences will consider their own relationship with the land and the changing realities facing rural communities.
“Art has the ability to challenge assumptions, preserve histories, amplify overlooked voices and imagine alternative futures,” he said.
Through Xa Umhlaba Uthetha, Ngcai asks viewers to consider what abandoned fields say about the communities that once depended on them and what possibilities might remain if those connections to the land are renewed.
