Unlike a conventional exhibition, Spier Light Art, which runs from 6 March–6 April 2026, encourages visitors to navigate the farm at night, encountering and engaging with illuminated artworks along the estate’s winding paths.
WORDS Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Supplied
Returning for its eighth edition, Spier Light Art is set to transform the historic Stellenbosch wine farm into a glowing, nocturnal landscape of contemporary art.
Curated by Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather, this year’s edition will feature selected works from 21 South African artists. These illuminating works cover various themes, from environmental crises and post-apartheid realities to more abstract explorations of perception, technology and the cosmos. “The exhibition invites audiences to immerse themselves in the sensual and ephemeral interplay of light and sound, allowing curiosity and intrigue to guide their journey,” says Vaughn.
There is no fixed route or prescribed experience at Spier Light Art; visitors are encouraged to let the many winding paths take them on a personal journey – to experience light as both medium and meaning on their own terms. “The non-linear format is not merely a structural decision; it is a philosophical one. Since visitors enter the farm from different points and proceed at their own pace, the question of how works sit in relation to one another becomes as significant as the works themselves. We think less about sequence and more about what I would call pockets of meaning: moments where groups of works come together in ways that reward those who pause, but also offer something to those who move quickly through.”
This year, the works have been intentionally clustered where scale or composition fosters dialogue. “It’s often a very intuitive decision to cluster a group of works together in the landscape,” says Jay. “Something about their scale or composition sets up an interesting dialogue that speaks back to the curatorial semantics across the whole exhibition. This year, there are the direct and immediate neon text pieces that celebrate the South African vernacular, whilst other works illuminate unexpected intersections between technology, infrastructure and the natural environment.”
Sightlines are essential at Spier Light Art, with the curators arranging works to provide multiple vantage points that reveal subtleties up close while, from a distance, establishing visual connections that guide visitors without controlling their path. “These strategies generate anticipation of what lies ahead and serve as reminders of what has been seen. We consider the farm as a participant and a collaborator in the meaning-making process,” explains Vaughn.
The artists, selected from an open call, were invited to explore light in all its conceptual, socio-political and cultural dimensions. “Jay and I have realised over the last eight years that the most compelling work often comes from not having a predetermined curatorial framework. We issue a broad invitation with multiple themes, inviting diverse responses from creative practitioners across a wide range of disciplines. We hope this creates an inclusive process and also introduces us to new and exciting voices,” says Vaughn.
Through the curatorial process, Jay and Vaughn identified the more developed proposals and posed different questions: how do they hold together? What are they engaging with? Over several rounds, a set of interconnected themes emerged.
“This year, memory emerged as one of the underlying themes. Memory here is not singular or easily defined. What became clear as we examined the selected works was how each artist approached it: through the ethereal and the spiritual; through heritage and embodied identity; through how communities hold their own histories. Some works make this explicit. Others carry it as subtext, as a current running beneath a seemingly more formal or technological exploration. The richness lies in that layering: the visitor encounters memory not as a fixed subject but as a recurring frequency, tuned differently across multiple works,” says Vaughn. Alongside this, the curators paid close attention to how artists engaged with the medium itself. “The use of technology, the exploration of perception, and the turn towards the cosmos. These are not separate from the question of memory but are intertwined with it,” he adds.
Spier Light Art 2026 is also set to continue its international exchange programme, welcoming Swiss artists Florian Bach and Kerim Seiler, whose site-specific projects respond to the South African context, creating a dialogue between local and global perspectives on contemporary light art. “The relationship with the Swiss artists in this programme started a few years ago during a research trip to Switzerland. That was important. It meant that when we formalised the brief, we were not starting from scratch. As the co-curator, I had spent time engaging with them about their practice, their understanding of the work we were doing with Spier Light Art, and whether South Africa was a context they genuinely felt capable of engaging with at that level of attentiveness, is extremely important to the success of the programme,“ explains Vaughn.
The month-long exhibition is more than illumination – “it is a lens through which we perceive, reflect and question the world,” says Vaughn. “Light determines time. It’s a rare opportunity to step away from the glare of screens and experience light in its most elemental form, allowing visitors to wander freely in the company of strangers, similarly transfixed by the effects of the nocturnal interplay of light and sound,” adds Jay.
Spier Light Art 2026 artists
Chelsea Holland | THE GREY AREA IN THE CAPE WINELANDS
This project uses a complex, interactive system built with motion-design software. The work emerges from interdisciplinary research exploring how humans perceive and relate to both the visible and invisible aspects of the world around them.
David Brown | DOG WATCH I
A permanent piece at Spier, David’s work channels memories of apartheid-era violence and societal injustice, using sculpture to transform trauma into visual storytelling that resonates across time and place.
Florian Bach | SPILL
The artist’s installation confronts audiences with human control over the environment, turning brightness into intrusion and reflecting on social and ecological consequences.
Jenna Burchell | SONGSMITH
A permanent installation at Spier, this interactive sound installation fuses digital and natural elements, creating vessels for memory and storytelling.
Joe Turpin | ‘EISH’
Neon letters and playful text capture the frustrations and contradictions of post-1994 South Africa.
Kenneth Shandu | WHEN THE SKY FALLS
When the Sky Falls reflects on South Africa’s devastating floods and the resilience of affected communities. These recurring disasters, intensified by climate change, poor urban planning and social inequality, result in loss, displacement and the ongoing vulnerability of those most affected.
Kerim Seiler | PNEUMA, SOMNAMBUL
A dynamic, travelling public sculpture composed of single beams, knotted to tetrahedral cells adorned with vibrant, blinking fluorescent lights, Kerim’s work engages deeply with its surroundings.
Kunye Collab | LUMEN VITAE
Lumen Vitae (Latin: Light of Life) explores the profound symmetry between the human body and the cosmos.
Mawande ka Zenzile | UBUGQI
A neon text work embodying the isiXhosa concept of “ubugqi” – profound intuitive knowledge.
Noa Hall | SENTINEL
An experimental documentary installation tracking Johannesburg’s Braamfontein Spruit and its pylons, Sentinel transforms industrial structures into spectral forms.
Paul Thabo Nhlapo | FIDDLEARTH
Through animation and mixed media, Paul explores post-apartheid identity, mental health, injustice and masculinity.
Qondiswa James, Nathalie Ponlot, Themba Stewart & Jonathan O’Hear | SAFE IN THE SHADOWS
An interactive installation that reclaims darkness as sanctuary: a network of cairns – stone, translucent resin and salvaged remnants – linked by root-like conduits that echo mycelial threads and neural pathways, combining light, mirrors and digital feeds to explore memory, ancestral traditions and resistance to compulsory visibility.
Renée Holleman | UNDER THE OVERGROWTH IS NO SMALL MEASURE OF SUNLIGHT
Renée celebrates the overlooked weeds: ‘plants out of place’, reminding us of the veering, queering and rebellious dynamics of living things.
Ronald Abdou & Zachary Stewart | BURNING
This collaborative installation explores how conflict is experienced in the digital age.
Sam ‘/XAM’ Fortuin | ONTHOU
Onthou is an audiovisual short film of a recurring dream that begins and ends on the edge of a kelp forest on the coast of Cape Town.
Stephen van den Heever & Amy Leibbrandt | A MOMENT OF REST FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T
Positioned between the trees along the Eerste River, this artwork engages with the notion of rest for those attending and in honour of those who can’t.
Strijdom van der Merwe | ARTIFACTS
Strijdom reimagines colonial artefacts, replacing Dutch designs with indigenous San and Khoe rock paintings, along with influences of Chinese imports used in Cape Dutch homesteads and the VOC.
Thando Mama | ‘1994 (I)’ (REVISITED)
A multimedia reflection on South Africa’s journey since 1994, Mama’s installation aims to capture resilience and memory.
Theytjie | CLOSER TO HARM THAN HOME
Closer to Harm than Home is a short film that explores the ongoing impact of gun and gang violence on the Cape Flats.
Tiago Rodrigues | THE SOUND OF MY VOICE
Part of the permanent collection at Spier Wine Farm, The Sound of My Voice is an intervention in response to the farm’s slave bell.
Wezile Harmans | ENDLOVINI AS A FORM OF ARCHIVE
Endlovini as a Form of Archive is an installation that dwells in the tension between fragility and resilience.
Spier Light Art runs from 6 March – 6 April 2026 | Daily at dusk. Bookings for entry and sunset picnics can be made on Dineplan. For more information, visit spier.co.za.
