A4 Arts 

  exhibition installation, management
  artist liaison & logisitcs


Cape Town 

                    2018-21

For Igshaan Adams' Open Studio, we transformed the gallery into a studio and production space, allowing us to engage directly with the creative process. The images, like the engagement itself, unfolded as processes in time and space. We carved out meeting points for practitioners and audiences to engage with the developments, fostering a deeper understanding of both the intricate making of the works and their meaning. Igshaan’s generosity provided us with many additional opportunities for engagement.


A4 Arts Foundation was established as a laboratory for the arts in 2017. The organization supports arts practitioners and provides an interface for the public to engage with the process of artistic and curatorial production.

Exhibitions are spaces of inquiry, wonder, and production. Production, because an exhibition is rarely just a neatly arranged, sense-making presentation of a topic or question shaped by the curator’s work. Exhibitions are also research, discussions, ideas, shifts, and, above all, conversations—conversations with artists, artworks, spaces, people, and audiences.

At A4, exhibitions always invited an expanded practice, incorporating collaborations with visiting curators and artists, as well as talks, walkabouts, and extended interpretations of the exhibition’s narrative in both material and non-material forms. From selecting the right carpet to crafting the perfect concave shape for a screening, or arranging photographs to tell the story just right—every detail spoke to the psychology of space and the engagement with art.

Amidst management responsibilities, I always had the freedom to create moments of detour—asking artists to share glimpses of their practice, sourcing resources to expand production, or acting as the conduit between the artist, the institution, and the city beyond the gallery walls. These moments extended the life of exhibitions into spaces of discovery and engagement.

From collection-based exhibitions to open productions and program design, I have worked on the following exhibitions:

Open Studio with artist Igshaan Adams - 2020/2021
Photo Book! Photo-Book! Photobook! -  with Sean O’Toole 2021/2022
Tell it To The Mountains
with photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa - 2020/2021
Without a Clear Discernible Image with artist Kevin Beasley - 2019
Risk from the collection - 2019
Ikhono Lasenatali with artist Zanele Muholi - 2019
Black and White Cape Town Report with artist Dan Perjovschi - 2019
Sounding the Void,  Imagining the Orchestra - with curator Bhavisha Panchia 2019
In Your Place with ICP-Bard MFA graduates - 2019

The images serve as traces of the process leading up to the exhibitions, revealing the fragments and elements that come together in the final presentation.

Sean O'Toole is a writer, editor, and occasional curator based in Cape Town. His exploration of what a photobook is began with mapping his own collection—examining the books as objects and as signifiers of past societies, while connecting them to contemporary ideas of design, language, and imagery. From playful aesthetics to the power of the book—banned, as in the case of House of Bondage—his research engaged with the reawakening of stories and lives.



The installation for the Risk exhibition focused on artworks rather than artistic production in situ, making the engagement with these works an intriguing conversation between the pieces and their representation in space. It explored their requirements, connections, and juxtapositions, creating dynamic statements in relation to the other works in the show.



Building on South African artist Zanele Muholi’s long-standing self-portrait practice, young artists were invited to respond to their works, reinterpreting the original photographs through their respective material choices. Muholi has been a pivotal voice in shaping conversations around the LGBTQI community for years, making this an especially significant moment.



The South African writer, curator, and researcher of visual and audio culture, Bhavisha Panchia, created a participatory exhibition using sound, video, and vinyl design as spaces for inquiry. Blending old and new technologies, she incorporated her archive of sounds, music production, books, and mappings to explore these themes.

The collaboration with South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa began in the studio at A4, exploring different modes of photography—its materiality, its narrative potential, and, most importantly, the limitations of language. It was about the beauty of not understanding, yet still understanding—a negotiation between deeply personal moments and a more distanced photographic gaze.



The U.S. American artist Kevin Beasley produced his exhibition entirely in Cape Town, transforming the gallery into a studio, production space, and site of reflection—ultimately shaping it into an exhibition. Together with his assistant, Shani Strand, we created connection points between the artist’s practice and the urban realities surrounding the institution.


The Romanina artist Dan Perjovschi is known for his witty, sharp, and poignant commentaries on contemporary events. During his visit to Cape Town, we facilitated access points to the city and its history, which he then translated into a visual report—drawn directly onto the gallery walls.


In Your Place asks after the multiple meanings of ‘home/homeward’. The parameters of ‘home’ are explored as a physical as well as psychological construct, in memory, from history and idea, and as a place of personal sanctuary. From global immigrants and refugees, to local communities and individuals seeking safety, pivotal questions concerning the identity of ‘home’ emerge from the query. The ICP-MFA graduates are a group of twelve visual artists from South Africa, India, Taiwan, Japan, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the US. The MFA programme has seen the artists working alongside one another over two years in New York, sharing curious and communal questions about home.


@nishamerit — all rights reserved.