Shaping Memory

Through shaping forms in clay, ceramicist Mellaney Roberts explores shifting identities, memory and generational storytelling with her latest solo exhibition, Waar bloed nie loop nie…?

INTERVIEWED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS courtesy of Berman Contemporary

As one of South Africa’s exciting emerging voices in contemporary ceramics, artist Mellaney Roberts sees clay as a sacred medium – a vessel for memory and storytelling. We spoke with the artist about the power of memory in her latest solo exhibition – Waar bloed nie loop nie…? – at Berman Contemporary.

Your work is deeply rooted in memory. How do you navigate the line between personal memory and collective history when creating?

“My work is deeply rooted in the interplay between personal memory

and collective history. I often begin from an intimate place – family narratives, inherited silences, or the tactile sensations of clay that feel like echoes of my ancestors’ touch. But memory, especially in a postcolonial South African context, never exists in isolation. It’s entangled with systems of erasure, displacement, and resistance.

When I create, I treat personal memory as a portal – not just to self, but to the broader, often fragmented, collective experience. I think of memory as both sediment and scar: layered, textured, and vulnerable to time and power. The materials I use – clay, glass, copper – each hold metaphoric weight. Clay, for instance, carries the memory of the land and the body; it cracks, absorbs, and remembers.

Navigating that line means holding space for ambiguity. I’m not interested in clear answers, but in the tension between what is remembered and what is lost. I want the viewer to feel both the intimacy of the individual and the resonance of a shared, haunted past. In this way, my work becomes a quiet negotiation between the self and the collective archive.”

You describe yourself as both an artist and an archaeologist. Can you talk about how these roles intersect in your process, especially in relation to clay as a material?

“Describing myself as both an artist and an archaeologist speaks to the way I approach making, not just as creation, but as excavation. Archaeology, in my practice, is less about uncovering literal artefacts and more about unearthing emotional, historical, and ancestral residues that linger in materials, especially clay.

Clay, to me, is not a passive medium. It’s a living archive. It holds the memory of land, of water, of hands that shaped it long before mine. Working with it feels like entering into a dialogue with time, compressing generations of touch, ritual, and rupture into a single form. Each vessel, fragment, or fired surface becomes a site of memory, where the personal and the historical collapse into one another.

My process often involves research, not just through books or archives, but through embodied practices like digging, collecting, and shaping. I treat clay as both a material and a metaphor: it stains, it breaks, it preserves. It teaches me about fragility and endurance. So when I speak of being an artist-archaeologist, it’s because I’m constantly sifting through layers of narrative, of trauma, of beauty, to find what still speaks, and what needs to be re-voiced through form.”

“Waar bloed nie loop nie…?” touches on absence and silence as generative forces. How do you translate such intangible elements into visual or tactile form?

“‘Waar bloed nie loop nie…’ speaks directly to the spaces where language fails, where history is interrupted, where bloodlines are severed or untraceable. Absence and silence aren’t voids in my work – they are active forces. They shape form as much as presence does.

I translate these intangibles by working with materials that carry tension: clay that cracks, glass that distorts or conceals, empty vessels that hold nothing but space. I lean into fragmentation – unfinished surfaces, broken lines, negative space – because these suggest what’s missing without trying to repair it. Silence becomes texture. Absence becomes weight.

Sometimes, the most powerful part of an artwork is what isn’t there—the space that invites the viewer to fill in, to question, or to sit in discomfort. In this way, I’m not illustrating silence; I’m constructing environments where silence can be felt. The work becomes a kind of listening to what has been suppressed, forgotten, or purposefully erased.

Ultimately, I believe absence and silence aren’t the end of a story, but the beginning of another kind of seeing.”

The Baviaanskloof seems to be both a physical and emotional landscape in your work. How has your relationship to that place evolved through this project?

“The Baviaanskloof has always lived in my imagination as a place of origin, carrying the weight of my ancestral memory and inherited silence. But through the making of this project, it has become much more than a physical location. It’s evolved into an emotional and conceptual landscape – one that challenges me to listen more deeply, to read what is not written, and to feel what has been buried.

At first, I approached the Kloof with a sense of reverence and distance – something sacred but slightly out of reach. But spending time with the land, speaking with family, collecting stories, and even working with clay from the surrounding region has transformed that relationship. The Baviaanskloof now feels like an extension of my own body – scarred, layered, full of echoes.

It taught me that land remembers. Even when documents are lost or erased, the terrain holds onto traces – through erosion, through pattern, through silence. This project has shifted my understanding of the Kloof from a place I come from to a place I am in constant dialogue with. It’s no longer just about looking back – it’s about standing within its complexity and letting that shape how I tell stories, how I make, and how I remember.”

Clay is central to your practice, symbolising both fragility and permanence. What specific qualities of clay make it such a powerful conduit for memory and history in your work?

“Clay holds a paradox that I’m constantly drawn to – it’s fragile, yet enduring. It records every touch, every imprint, every fracture. That sensitivity makes it a powerful conduit for memory and history. In my work, clay becomes a kind of archive – it absorbs gestures, holds silence, and remembers without words.

What I find most compelling is clay’s ability to move between states. It’s soft, it cracks, it hardens—it survives fire. That process mirrors how memory behaves: shifting, breaking, and reforming. Even when a ceramic object is broken, its fragments still speak. There’s a sense of both vulnerability and resilience embedded in it.

I also think of clay as a medium of the earth, quite literally grounded. It connects me to the land, especially in a South African context, where land itself carries deep political, ancestral, and emotional significance. To shape clay is to shape something older than myself, and to participate in a lineage of makers whose stories may never have been told.”

You invite viewers into spaces that are both physical and metaphorical. What kind of emotional or reflective experience do you hope audiences will have when engaging with your work?

“I hope my work invites viewers into a space of quiet reckoning – a place where they can feel both presence and absence. The physical forms – clay vessels, glass domes, raw textures – are entry points, but what I’m really offering is a space for reflection, for listening, for remembering.

I don’t expect people to see exactly what I see. Instead, I want them to slow down, to sit with discomfort, to notice what is unsaid. The work asks for sensitivity to material, to history, to the silences we carry. If someone walks away feeling a shift, even a small one – a moment of recognition, a memory resurfaced, or a new question – that’s enough.

Ultimately, I hope the work becomes a mirror and a threshold: something that reflects inner landscapes while also opening pathways into deeper, often overlooked, collective experiences.”

Mellaney Robert’s solo exhibition Waar bloed nie loop nie…? is showing at the Berman Contemporary in Johannesburg until 24 August 2025.

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