Amazwi Museum Exhibition and Presentation

The Sustainable Together visual and sound exhibition, co-created by Return to Origin and the community of Ekuphumleni, travelled to the Amazwi Museum of South African Literature in late March as part of the program of events for the Literature, Heritage and Ecology Conference 2022.

Digital Exhibition at Amazwi Museum of Literature

Healing the Broken Links between People and Nature: Exhibition as Storyteller

“Exhibition as storyteller is the vehicle the community uses to transmit the stories to the next generation. The stories thus reverberate through the generations. Teaching our children to love the earth before trying to save it may be our only hope. Inner and outer nature are inextricably linked. When we return to our original design and ways of knowing we will begin to make peace with, and heal, the broken links to nature.” – Mbali Marais, Founder, Return to Origin

Click the buttons below to read more on each of our presentation’s themes.

Healing the Broken Links

When I asked a bushman a few years ago to tell me about his relationship to nature he looked puzzled “I don’t understand the question”, he said, “I am nature”.

Exhibition as Storyteller

Candles flicker and coloured wax harden in streaks across dark soil. Earth, scattered with seeds and adorned with flowers and fruit, tells a story of offering, honouring and abundance, of relationship to nature.

Nature’s Mirror

“Seeing the pictures like this, they’re waking up a hunger inside. You see, there is something inside, even way inside, down there, that is hungry for ways of the olden days. And seeing these pictures, it makes you remember where you come from.” – Zanele, Workshop Participant