My forthcoming exhibition, Bat behaviour, to be presented at the Vrystaat Arts Festival (15-19 July 2025) explores human-bat relationships through the lens of an animal phenomenology. Informed by multiple conversations with museum curators, scientists and bat enthusiasts, the works reflect on the limits of human bodies and interspecies care, while proposing imaginative strategies to encourage an empathetic connection with these idiosyncratic mammals.

 I follow a relational methodology that proposes that artistic processes such as observational drawings can pre-empt (and visualise) the formation of emotional connections. A personal interest in a group of slit-faced bats (Nycteris thebaica) collected at Fountain’s Grove, Pretoria in 1907, as well as the juvenile epauletted fruit bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi) found near my office at the University of Pretoria, became directives for studying specific specimens in the bat collection at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History. These studies, often conducted in situ at the museum are intended to mark points in a process of looking, learning and feeling.

A group of works collectively titled, Measuring instruments, developed from perceptual sculptural studies. Intersecting points and measurements are figured in relation to the specific animal and not through a universal measurement system. As such, each measuring instrument is created for a specific species with puzzling increments such as teeth marks and cavities.

 The artworks in bat behaviour, as markers of “getting closer” to bats, are intended to invite viewers to look beyond popularised conceptions of bats, to engage with difference and specificity.

 This exhibition at the Vrystaat Arts Festival presents the mid-point of an artist residency at Future Africa, UP during 2025 and features new sculptural works and drawings created with financial support from the University of Pretoria.