Aaron Philander, Cleaning is comfort, 2025

Nanna’s Kitchen

Aaron Philander

Long gallery: 26.06.25 - 31.07.25

Through a diverse engagement with found and scavenged materials, my work tackles the troubled question of colouredness. What my practice to date has allowed, is to set in motion a journey of self-discovery and healing, by helping me to make sense of my struggles with identity and to place it within the vocabulary of personhood(s) of colour in South Africa. Though the privileges I have been afforded have been immense, these opportunities have at the same time distanced me from my community and a sense of being found ‘close to home.’ To remedy this loss of connection, my work stitches together material fragments that carry the essence of family members and ancestors, particularly those of my late grandmother - Nanna.

Much has been said about the difficulty of inhabiting the, or position of, ‘coloured’ person: being marked by an intermediary status (between white and black), struggles with belonging, misrepresentation (through stereotyping), and political contradiction. These broader problems reflect my own experience, particularly as an artist, and have culminated in a pressure to switch between different performative modes (code-switching). But this malleability of self has adverse effects, leaving me disoriented and riddled with a set of questions. It is these questions that I try to approach through making. How do the disparate and discarded objects of the domestic space, all with their own purpose and personal history, start to function as a collective form? How do I, as a being shaped by the collision of distinct cultural codes, start to find meaning amidst confusion?

The materials I use are embedded with personal experiences and hold the particular character of colouredness that resides in my home. Most of the materials are found in my shed, a place where things are stored, shelved, and forgotten. Despite their condition or usability, these objects are imbued with social life. They hold memories of my family. These rusted and weathered objects have an obscure beauty that is difficult to appreciate at first glance, which echoes some of my initial reactions to heritage and identity. Whether it be the rusted tools that have been sitting in the shed or the weathered relics that were found in my Nanna’s cupboards, when these materials are reconstructed into somethingn new, they mark my sense of self and bring an impression of the home into the exhibition.

The exhibition is titled Nanna’s Kitchen because it evokes the heart of where my understanding of colouredness was nurtured - through the everyday warmth, and chaos, and conviviality of life in coloured households. My Nanna’s home, like many others I grew up in, was a place of sensory memory: the smell of cooking, the singing that filled the rooms, the layered voices of family gathering, the laughter and the worn-down furniture. These spaces, though weathered, held a beauty rooted in community, resilience, and love. Nanna’s Kitchen brings that sense of home into the gallery, grounding my work in the memory of those lived experiences and honouring the textured, complex identity I carry forward.