February 2023
Volume IV. Chaos Calamus – Interspecies Reciprocal Altruism,
With Southern Guild Gallery
a solo exhibition of seating pods. Woven entirely in Kooboo cane – Hefer’s original material of choice – and incorporating carved timber sculptures by artist Adam Birch for the first time, this body of work reflects on the phenomenon of mutually beneficial symbiosis between species.
A keen observer of natural phenomena, organic forms, animal behaviours, and ecosystems, Hefer’s work is steeped in his fascination with biomimicry. A patch of forest floor, an anthill, the movement of lava – in Hefer’s mind, each unravels a parallel universe that offers a metaphoric lens through which to view our relationship to each other and the world at large. His collections of sculptural seating environments are speculative interventions, a series of playful proposals that take their cue from nature’s unerring adaptability, resourcefulness and interconnection.
Although originally inspired by the complex woven nests of the sociable weaver bird, the works in Chaos Calamus look to microbiology in their development of seating typologies – in particular, to amoeba. The unicellular organisms are known for their ability to alter their shapes by extending and retracting pseudopods or arm-like projections. Amoebas defy our assumptions around solidity and shape in the way they move, morph, and grow. “An amoeba keeps breaking up and reinventing its own structure in order to move into a space to perform a task,” says Hefer, describing them as the ultimate monster from a sci-fi movie.
The taxonomy of the exhibition’s title refers to the Chaos genus of amoeboid organisms which includes the so-called “giant amoeba”, Chaos carolinensis, the largest and best-known species. In Hefer’s speculative science, these works are a new species incorporating a fictional link to the Calamus genus of rattan palm.
The neat, bulbous shapes of the artist’s earlier nests are here extended and draped, resulting in fluid and oozing forms with interiors generous enough to accommodate at least two sitters inside. They are supported by large tree-fork sculptures by Birch, and as such, constitute a marriage of forms, crafts and makers – a symbiosis to which the title alludes. The works were also produced with the contribution of Hefer’s long-time collaborators, cane weavers from the Cape Town Society for the Blind, as well as welder Wellington Moyo.
I once read that early sci fi writers, because of the fact that they had zero information about the universe, planets even the moon, had to rely on their own imaginations for source material for inventing their new worlds. Some they say would study nature, such as insect colonies and behaviour for their inspiration. Some went a bit deeper into the microscopic communities.so I went into these microscopic worlds to see what I could find.
The first image of an amoeba was produced by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1755, who named his discovery “the little Proteus”, after Proteus, the shape-shifting sea-god of Greek Mythology.
The amoeba is the ultimate shape shifter and can change its form at will by changing the state of its outer-walls and the fluids in its body. It extends in a desired direction by creating extensions called pseudopods or false feet. These finger like shapes balloon out forwards pulling the rear of its cell forward. So they are adapting their shape constantly evolving according to the immediate context or environment. This blew my mind. it’s the ultimate sci-fi creature.
The show starts with a round simplistic form which is typical of my first nests. But as we see the other pieces in the show they start growing pseudopods and oozing off in different directions for different reasons. I wanted to evolve my shapes and forms and oozing them out seemed the natural way to go. Cyclosis and Sol-gel are first stages of the shape shift and these extensions provide space for you to slip your feet into.
In Pseudopodium, the extension has oozed down on to the floor creating a seating area to accommodate another occupant. Binary fission is the point when a cell divides into two, this piece is the moment just before splitting, creating two ends where people can sit facing each other, feet touching.
BINARY FISSION, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, white mahogany, sugar gum, leather
71 3/10 × 99 3/5 × 38 3/5 in | 181 × 253 × 98 cm
CYCLOSIS, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, Chinese camphor, leather
76 2/5 × 83 9/10 × 68 1/10 in | 194 × 213 × 173 cm
SOL GEL, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, sugar gum, leather
63 × 70 1/10 × 59 1/10 in | 160 × 178 × 150 cm
PSEUDOPODIUM, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, silky oak, leather, copper
77 1/5 × 114 1/5 × 67 7/10 in | 196 × 290 × 172 cm
April 2023
With Southern Guild Gallery for Design Miami 2023
A nod to John Hargreaves who signed me up for art school and set me upon my current trajectory. Without his selfless act and generosity, I would not be where I am today.
With Southern Guild Gallery for Design Miami 2023.
An ode to the bed-ins of Yoko Ono and John Lennon – a space to sit in and reflect, a space for peace and love.
YOKO, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, Chinese camphor, leather
76 2/5 × 83 9/10 × 68 1/10 in | 194 × 213 × 173 cm
JOHN, 2023
Kooboo cane, steel, Chinese camphor, leather
76 2/5 × 83 9/10 × 68 1/10 in | 194 × 213 × 173 cm
30 April – 26 August 2024
no bats, no chocolate at Galerie56 in Tribeca, New York
with Southern Guild Gallery
With Southern Guild Gallery
a “toy box” of inhabitable, animal-inspired sculptures that celebrate the intelligence and ingenuity of wild creatures. Each of the nine larger-than-life forms appeals directly to our imaginations, inviting a physical and emotional connection that places humans in communion with – rather than dominion over – the animal kingdom.
In no bats, no chocolate at Galerie56 in Tribeca, Hefer celebrates the “weird talents” and distinctive adaptations of a menagerie of animals, including a walrus, ladybird beetle, zebra, wildebeest/gnu, bat, bushbaby, beaver and crocodile. He points to the swarm intelligence of migrating wildebeest, which democratically decide where and how to cross rivers and traverse ground, and the mutualism between zebras and the bacteria that live in their gut, which help digest their food but transform into protein during times of scarcity.
While beavers are often seen as a menace, Hefer notes, they create vital ecosystems when they make dams, giving little fish a chance to grow and attracting frogs and other species. Their teeth contain high amounts of iron, which turns them orange and enables them to withstand the mechanical stress of gnawing through wood – including trees more than 10 feet tall. Their incisors never stop growing, so they do not become too worn despite years of chewing through hardwoods. Bats also have endearing characteristics: they all have belly buttons and in two species of Old World bats, the males can produce milk to feed their young. The flying mammals are responsible for pollinating many plants that we use for medicinal, cultural and economic purposes, including bananas, avocados, mangoes, agave and cacao – so you can give a little thanks when indulging in chocolatey sweetness.
With an eco-activist mindset, Hefer is a designer deeply immersed in animal behaviours, natural phenomena, organic forms and ecosystems. His iconic human-sized nests, woven in Kooboo cane, arose from his fascination with the nest-making skills of the sociable weaver bird, while major projects like Endangered (2018) explored sustainability in an African context through craft and the use of upcycled materials, and foregrounded vulnerable species to raise significant funds for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s conservation programmes. Plastocene (2020), commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia for the NGV Triennial, speculated about the mutant life-forms our plastic-filled oceans would give rise to after the Anthropocene era and presented amongst others, cup-fish, straw-fish, netfish and a 50 foot-wide octopus made from handwoven woollen ‘cigarette butts’.
Despite its use of humour and fantasy, no bats, no chocolate is a serious plea for greater tolerance of and reverence towards wild species, whose numbers are being outpaced by the proliferation of domesticated animals. “So many kids growing up in big cities don’t have positive relationships with wild animals. Their default response is one of fear and hostility,” Hefer notes. “But you have to love animals to protect them, and the less contact children have with animals, the less desire they will have to safeguard them.”
Growing up on farms in South Africa immersed the artist in a culture of interacting with animals. “I learnt to understand animals and see the difference in their personalities. Animals adapt to their environment, while humans predominate over nature to suit our needs. We’ve been taught we are higher up in the pecking order and that animals don’t have souls, but they so obviously do,” he says.
Hefer’s message of constructive co-existence with nature is borne out in his design methodology too. Referring to this collection as “a new kind of animal architecture”, he approaches it as a series of prompts inviting various ways to interact with the works: the audience can crawl inside the wildebeest or climb up onto its back, stretch out on or sit astride the walrus chaise, ride the pull-toy zebra and wheel it to another location, perch on the beavers or lie upon the quilted leather pads that are their tails. This dance of exchange between the user’s body and the work is at the crux of Hefer’s project, rooted in the disruptive power of play as a means to ignite a more creative, connected and humane way of relating to our environment and each other.
In this regard, Hefer’s forebears are the Radical Design Group of thinkers, architects and designers for whom the idea of play was paramount in opening up new types of social interactions. The work of Ettore Sottsass, Gae Aulenti, Superstudio, Gaetano Pesce and others posited that change ripples outwards from the domestic nucleus of the home. Hefer’s soft rebellion takes this even further with his embrace of local materials and craftsmanship, creating a system of collaborative manufacturing that spotlights the artisanal talents around him. The works in no bats, no chocolate were made with contributions by longtime collaborators including felt artist Ronel Jordaan, welder Wellington Moyo and leatherwork studio Leather Walls. Cradled within their plush interiors or energised by their unconventional forms, we rediscover the child within, emerging with a renewed sense of curiosity and connection with the natural world.
MY FIRST BEETLE, 2024
Leather, sheepskin, steel, timber
24 2/5 × 51 1/5 × 43 3/10 in | 62 × 130 × 110 cm
PAUL, 2023
Leather, Steel
49 3/5 × 61 × 94 1/10 in | 126 × 155 × 239 cm
ROBERT NESTA, 2024
Felt, sheepskin, steel, timber
66 1/10 × 79 1/10 × 42 9/10 in | 168 × 201 × 109 cm
TAO, 2024
Leather, steel, sheepskin
78 3/10 × 37 × 35 4/5 in | 199 × 94 × 91 cm
VICTOR, 2024
Leather, steel, castors
50 × 35 × 58 3/10 in | 127 × 89 × 148 cm
WARREN, 2024
Felt, sheepskin, steel
55 9/10 × 61 × 70 9/10 in | 142 × 155 × 180 cm
PLASTOCENE
Marine Mutants From a Disposable World
Plastocene – Marine Mutants From a Disposable World, made its world premiere on 19 December at the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial 2020 in Melbourne, Australia.
The first conceptualisation of the ANTHROPOCENE era was “scientific thought as a geological force”, yet it could be argued that our self-referential epoch will instead be defined by our ignorance and the destructive capacity of our species. A reliance on fossil fuels and a never-ending hunger for convenience and hyper-efficiency, at whatever cost, has led to a period of rapid geological decline. Ecosystems around the globe are destabilising in what may ultimately be defined as a period of mass extinction.
Our plastics are filling the oceans and heavy pollutants are changing the pH of our seas. While thousands of species die off, unable to adapt to the rapid changes in their environments, others begin to transmutate. Here, we see the earliest indications of the PLASTOCENE, a new era defined by organismal adaptation to the endless abundance of plastics and pollutants accumulating in our environment. In a twist of evolutionary fate akin to the genesis of the mitochondria, refined hydrocarbon distillates fuse with DNA to generate a new type of life – transitional forms that exemplify the fruits of the fossil-fuel consuming era before them. The future painted here is one that humans would struggle to inhabit, but at best, we can hope that life continues in this new form, following the mass extinction that we so selfishly perpetuated.
The collection of 5 large-scale handmade environments, including Buttpuss, a 14 metre-wide octopus clad with giant hand-felted cigarette butts, are an example of the types of creatures that shall inherit the earth. Transitional forms that exemplify the fruits of the fossil-fuel consuming and the never-ending hunger for convenience and hyper-efficiency of the ANTHROPOCENE.
Massive thanks to Trevyn and the whole team at Southern Guild for making it happen and during such crazy times.
Thanks to Ronel Jordaan Textiles, Streetwires, Mielie, Wolf & Maiden Creative Studio, Mae Artisinal Rugs, M Clothing and Leon at CXIXX, for putting up with me and making the dream come true.
And a BIG thank you to NGV for their faith and the means to create such awesome pieces.
Photographs – Antonia Steyn Courtesy of Southern Guild and NGV
BUTTPUSS
Buttpuss – Mutant 1 in a series of 5; 14m wide x 3.2m high
Hand made felt Cigarette butts, steel, canvas, leather, recycled carpet, plywood.
FLAT WHITE
Flat White -Mutant 2 in a series of 5
PLASTOCENE -Marine Mutants From a Disposable, World NGV Triennial 2020
2500mm wide x 2800mm wide x 3000mm long
Steel, Plywood, pleather, leather.
Disposable coffee cups have a thin plastic lining to prevent leaking, making them difficult to recycle. The lids are made from varying types of single-use plastic, which rarely get recycled.
In the ocean the cups and lids break up into pieces that look like food. Fish will eat the tiny plastic particles, and eventually those particles can make their way back into our food chain.
Plastic cutlery is one of the most deadly plastics for sea turtles, birds and marine animals.
Sharp, highly likely to be contaminated, and commonly found in waterways, these plastics can cause serious injuries. Seabirds and turtles who eat the plastic pieces get internal injuries and poisoning.
Less than half of plastic utensils thrown away are recycled.
Here, we see further indications of the PLASTOCENE, a new era defined by organismal adaptation to the endless abundance of plastics and pollutants accumulating in our environment.
Again a BIG thank you to NGV for making the whole Triennal happen, it looks incredible and to Southern Guild and Wolf and Maiden.
Photographs – Antonia Steyn Courtesy of Southern Guild and NGV
Q-TIP
Q-Tip – creature 3 in a series of 5
PLASTOCENE -Marine Mutants From a Disposable, World NGV Triennial 2020
2000mm high x 2200mm wide x 2800mm long
Steel, Plywood, recycled sails, recycled sails, recycled textiles, sheep skin, leather.
Due to High usage and improper disposal, cotton bud pollution is widespread, with cotton buds ending up on coastlines across the world,
Once in the ocean they pose a threat to wildlife and the environment.
A cotton buds long thin shape can pierce the internal organs of marine animals that may accidentally ingest them, and plastic stems regularly turn up in the stomachs of seabirds. As they breakdown they not only add to microplastic pollution but continue to pose a threat to wildlife throughout the food chain from ingestion or toxic release.
Q-Tip is a further indication of the PLASTOCENE, a new era defined by organismal adaptation to the endless abundance of plastics and pollutants accumulating in our environment.
Again a BIG thank you to Ewan and Tony and the crew at NGV and to Southern Guild, Adri and Zanele of Mieliegirl, Mae Artisinal Rugs and Leon at CXIXX
Photographs – Antonia Steyn Courtesy of Southern Guild and NGV
SABRE TOOTHED NETFEESH
Sabre Toothed Netfeesh – creature 4 in a series of 5
PLASTOCENE -Marine Mutants From a Disposable, World NGV Triennial 2020
NGV International (National Gallery of Victoria) Melbourne, Australia.
1600mm high x 1500mm wide x 3100mm long
Steel, Plywood, chicken wire, nylon rope off cuts recycled textiles, pool noodles, found objects.
A ghost net is a fishing net that’s been lost or abandoned in the ocean. These nets continue to trap everything in their path, presenting a major problem for the health of our oceans and marine life.
Ghost nets also entangle sea turtles, dolphins and porpoises, birds, sharks, seals, and more. The nets keep animals from moving freely, cause injuries, and keep mammals and birds from rising to the surface for air. hundreds of animals can be caught in a single net. Most modern nets are made of nylon or other plastic compounds that can last for centuries.Ghost nets make up at least 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Those abandoned fishing lines and nets that do breakdown, become smaller pieces of plastic. Marine animals mistake this microplastic for food and eat it, which can harm internal organs, keep them from eating, and expose them to toxic chemicals.
Further indications of the PLASTOCENE, a new era defined by organismal adaptation to the endless abundance of plastics and pollutants accumulating in our environment. Transitional forms that exemplify the fruits of the fossil-fuel consuming and the never-ending hunger for convenience and hyper-efficiency of the ANTHROPOCENE.
Again a BIG thank you to everyone at the at NGV and to Southern Guild and Leon at CXIXX
Photographs – Antonia Steyn Courtesy of Southern Guild and NGV
SUCKER FISH
Sucker fish – Beast 5 in a series of 5
PLASTOCENE -Marine Mutants From a Disposable, World NGV Triennial 2020
NGV International (National Gallery of Victoria) Melbourne, Australia.
1600mm high x 1500mm wide x 3100mm long
Steel, Plywood, chicken wire, nylon, recycled t shirt textiles, expired lifejackets.
Plastic straws are one of the most widely used, and therefore disposed of, plastic products. Many types of straws cannot be reused or recycled. Most plastic straws are also not biodegradable and cannot be broken down naturally by bacteria and other decomposers into non-toxic materials. Straws are particularly prone to ending up in our waterways, and ultimately the oceans, due to their light weight structure.
They are deadly for sea turtles, birds and marine animals, sharp and highly likely to be contaminated, these plastics can cause serious injuries or poisoning when eaten or inhaled.
If they do break down into ever-smaller particles, they release chemicals into the soil, air, and water that are harmful to animals, plants, people, and the environment.
Further indications of the PLASTOCENE, a new era defined by organismal adaptation to the endless abundance of plastics and pollutants accumulating in our environment. Transitional forms that exemplify the fruits of the fossil-fuel consuming and the never-ending hunger for convenience and hyper-efficiency of the ANTHROPOCENE.
Again a BIG thank you to everyone at the at NGV and to Southern Guild, Adri and Zanele of Mieliegirl for their incredible hand craft and trust, and Leon at CXIXX
Photographs – Antonia Steyn Courtesy of Southern Guild and NGV
