Concatenation

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noun

1

: a group of things linked together or occurring together in a way that produces a particular result or effect.

2

: the act of concatenating things or the state of being concatenated: union in a linked series.

 

Concatenation is the 2023 iteration of the Student Takeover exhibition at the Gallery of the University of Stellenbosch. This year, it took the form of a curatorial project run by 4th year Fine Arts students, Lynette Geldenhuys and Minka Schoonwinkel.

The aim of this exhibition was to bring together as many artists involved in the Visual Arts Department as possible. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, lecturers, and alumni responded to the call for self-portraits, submitting work across many mediums and disciplines. To further the aim of the exhibition, all entries were accepted.

Each artwork is the artist’s representation of themselves, an individual within the collection of the exhibition. The works are all intermingled, with no separation of student, lecturer, or alumni. The artworks have all been curated not to be individual stand-alone pieces in a group show, but to work together to all individually contribute to the larger whole.

Concatenation represents a coming together. The Visual Arts Department is a concatenation of people, all working under the same roof at one point or another. Every person within the Department is a concatenation of all the events in their lives. This exhibition is a concatenation of self-portraits, bringing all these elements together.