Where are we going? Everard Read, Franschhoek 12 April – 3 May 2025

Where are we going? takes up the theme of migration, which began at an exhibition held at the Everard Read Gallery in Cape Town in 2021, 1984 Fight or Flight: Apocalypse Now? Recycle Re-use Re-con(figure). In the 2025 iteration of the boat people the desperation of the migrants is made prominent by the size of the armada. Waves of desperate beings continue to cross the Mediterranean in perilous conditions attempting to enter countries in Europe, perceived to be safe from war, starvation, aggression and misogyny.

In the host countries, compassion seems to have been replaced by a frantic desire to keep unwanted “illegal” immigrants out. Extending from bizarre floating hotels to suggestions to seek refuge in other African countries such as Rwanda, (which itself was a site of genocide a mere thirty years ago), the migrants find themselves in no man’s land, a kind of liminal place where they are neither here, nor there.

Crucially, it is little understood that in these portentous times non-human animals are also driven from their usual habitats by the destruction and degradation of their home environments. Thus, the boat people in Where are we going, are a mixture of human, animal and hybrid human/animal beings suggesting there is little difference in their lived experiences.