The Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) Gallery, in partnership with and funded by the University Research Committee, is proud to present IMPACT is a verb, a dynamic group exhibition that brings together 14 distinguished academics, associates, and artists in residence from the fields of architecture, visual art, art therapy, fashion, graphics, industrial design, microbiology and multimedia. Curated by FADA Gallery curator Dr Farieda Nazier, the exhibition features the work of Alexander Opper, Prof Alison Kearney, Dr Cameron Harris & Dr Gavin Wayte, Kate Shand, Katlego Madumo, Prof Khaya Mchunu & Kiara Gounder, Neil Badenhorst, Neil Lowe, Oupa Sibeko, Prof Ruth Sacks, Tinyiko Baloyi, and Prof Tobias Barnard.
These academics engage with art primarily through theory, research, and critical discourse, extending traditional artistic practice beyond its limitations. The exhibition will be on view from 18 September to 17 October at the FADA Gallery, Bunting Road Campus.
“The annual Creative Research Exhibition is a moment of dialogue – an opening between our faculty and the community. It allows us to share our ideas, to make our research visible, and to invite our audiences to shape the conversation with their insights. As facilitators of critical knowledge, it is important that we interrogate the impact we have on our students, communities and contexts,” — says Dr Farieda Nazier, FADA Gallery curator.
Impact is never neutral. It is always relational – an exchange between bodies, histories, and contexts that leaves both visible and invisible traces. It is a continuum: the instant of contact, the reverberations that follow, and the imagined futures that ripple outward. This exhibition seeks diverse interpretations and artistic expressions of IMPACT – from the deeply intimate to the globally significant.
Impact can bruise or mark the skin, but it can also reshape an inner landscape: a memory embedded deep, a feeling that refuses to fade. It may be constructive or destructive, sometimes carrying lasting consequences far beyond one’s intent. Either way, impact is inseparable from action and an inevitable outcome of action. It is social, as movements, in how words and actions intersect to alter the course of communities. It is environmental, shaping and reshaping our physical world through human and natural forces. It is personal, embedded in the quiet moments that transform who we are. It is historical, echoing across generations to shape present realities. It is technological, propelling innovation while reconfiguring the ways we relate to each other and our environment.
In Impact is a verb, the participant artists and designers consider how these forces intersect—how personal and political, intimate and systemic, coexist within a single gesture or object. Through visual and sonic expressions, this exhibition holds space for both the tenderness and the violence of impact, to ask: How do moments, movements, and ideas endure across time and space? And what, in their wake, do they make of us?
🔗 RSVP to the Opening: https://forms.office.com/r/TTtN3qVJg6
Public Programme:
18 September, 17h30 for 18h00 Exhibition Opening
20 September, 11h00 to 13h00, Artist Walkabout
27 September, 11h00 to 15h00 “I draw what I like: Youth activation” by Katerina Findt
4 October, 11h00 to 13h00, “Exploring impressions & traces: Clay printing workshop” by Kate Shand
11 October, 11h00 to 13h00, “Confluence: Live performance” by Alison Kearney, Cameron Harris & Gavin Wayte
🔗 RSVP to the Public Programme: https://forms.office.com/r/azg5Mc8uRT
About FADA Gallery
FADA Gallery is an in-house, experimental, vibrant, and transformative creative lab space devoted to stimulating innovative thinking through a host of art- and design-based experiences. Constructing knowledge through cutting–edge art and design practices in a diverse range of curated exhibitions, events, talks, and new media compliments the FADA teaching and learning experience, including the research and development programme. Bringing advancements in local art, design and architecture developments to the students, staff, alumni, and the local art community.