Exhibition opening: And I, a newly evolved fish.

And I, a newly evolved fish, an exhibition by the RE-WIRING project, the Women's and Gender Studies Department, UWC, and the CHRs Iyatsiba Lab will be opening on Friday, 8 August 2025. The exhibition opening will be preceded by a seminar focusing on watery engagements.

And I, a newly evolved fish (Iyatsiba Lab, August 8, 2025 – October, 20, 2025) showcases Southern African art works that engage with oceans, bodies of water and beaches to challenge gender binaries and their intersections with coloniality, patriarchy, global capitalism and the Anthropocene. Curated by Rory Kahiya Tsapayi, the exhibition brings together contemporary artworks as well as those in archives that think with water towards disrupting the entangled binaries of race, gender, sexuality and human-nature within the historical and continued dominance of colonial, capitalist and anthropocentric logics. It considers bodies of water, particularly oceans, as sites, subjects, and frameworks through which to imagine gender, sexuality, and power otherwise and within broader social and environmental justice goals. Such work further addresses the erasures of raced, gendered and other marginal bodies, knowledges, and histories both within dominant art and public representations, and in the public imaginary. The exhibition is a part of the Realising Women and Girl’s inclusion, representation and empowerment (RE-WIRING) project, a 3-year EU-funded project (2023-2026) (https://re-wiring.eu/)..

This is also the first event of the department of Women’s and Gender Studies 30 year anniversary celebrations.