It’s that time of year when the night skies at Spier wine farm are set alight! Mark the dates in your calendar because Stellenbosch’s favorite event, Spier Light Art, returns for its sixth edition. From March 1st to April 1st, 2024, visitors can illuminate their evenings with 21 different light and video artworks installed across the farm.
Arrive just before the sun goes down to enjoy an outdoor feast of food and wine under the summer sky. As the stars come out, the lights turn on, transforming the landscape into a magical wonderland of art and innovation.
Art is a big deal at Spier. For a start, it exhibits one of the largest contemporary art collections in the country. But it also invests a lot of time and energy into making art accessible to as many people as possible. That’s why this annual light art experience is always free to enter – the aim is to celebrate artists and their creations and to offer every visitor a unique interaction with inspiring artworks.
There’s a popular opinion that art holds up a mirror to society. It reflects what is happening in the world. This is certainly true of the work featured at Spier Light Art 2024. The artists each grapple with big themes and challenges in our modern world, such as environmental disasters and climate change, how technology dominates our lives, the effects of racism and colonialism, gender identities, and how humans make sense of life.
Despite the weight of these ideas, the artists create in a way that invites lightness, interaction, and introspection. Sometimes you will laugh, sometimes you will sigh, but you will always think and wonder.
Curators Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather promise visitors to the farm yet another bold, bright, and beautiful art experience.
The curators say: “These works combine wonder, participation, and thought. This exhibition of Light Art is a space for celebration, offering moments of escape and fantasy, and moments when we may touch sides with the world outside, lest indeed, we fall completely asleep.”
These lights and colors will awaken your senses. You might happen upon a mesmerizing, colorful network of fungi in Stevie Thompson’s Mycelium or be faced with the blurry lines between relaxation and inattention in Alan Alborough’s sculptural ‘ZZZZ’.
You might encounter Abri de Swardt’s Flood Light or Naadira Patel and Sarah de Villiers’ Assembling Lines and wonder how we can save our planet from humanity’s excess and short-sightedness.
Your opinions and beliefs about gender and race, immigration and labor might be broadened. You may wonder what it means to be alienated by language or contemplate on the invasiveness of big brands’ advertising.
Whichever artwork you encounter, you will be engaged and entertained in South Africa’s one-of-a-kind art experience. Bring an open mind and comfy walking shoes – the art installations are exhibited across the farm – and let Spier Light Art 2024 add a whole lot of light to your life.
This project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, and FedEx.
Visitor Information:
- Date: March 1st – April 1st, 2024
- Time: The best time to visit is at sunset
- Cost: Entrance is free
- Food & Wine: A sunset picnic may be pre-booked, and eateries are open until 21:00 for the duration of the exhibition.