Dates: 25 June – 16 August 2026
Opening event: 18:00 on Tuesday, 7 July 2026
1st Walkabout event: 11:00 on Wednesday, 8 July 2026
2nd Walkabout event: 10:00 on Saturday, 11 July 2026
Venue: Main Building, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, 16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein
Tracing the Lines of Belonging
Oliewenhuis Art Museum is pleased to present Be[long], a solo exhibition by South African artist André Rose. This photographic exhibition reflects on place, belonging and longing. Drawing on sites he has lived in, worked in, and travelled through over the past five years, Rose uses photography to explore how personal and collective relationships to space are shaped, negotiated, and contested.
At its core, Be[long] engages with questions of inclusion and exclusion: how we move through the spaces we inhabit, who is welcomed into them, and who remains unseen. The exhibition turns attention to the land itself, prompting reflection on access, ownership, and stewardship within deeply unequal social and historical contexts. It explores the multiplicity of how the myriad layers of society engage, disengage, and reengage.
Through images of everyday scenes and familiar objects, including fenced boundaries, quiet interior spaces, and hinterland landscapes and urban scapes marked by subtle signs of control, Rose challenges what has become normalised within our social contracts. The work draws attention to the narratives that have been overlooked, silenced, or “whitewashed” for convenience, and considers how these omissions sit uneasily alongside contemporary claims of justice, belonging, and reconciliation.
Rose reflects that “The works extend from the ancient rumblings of the hinterland to the cacophony of the modern-day city. Reflecting on the waxing and waning of social mobility.”
The exhibition features photographic works produced across multiple formats, including hand-printed analogue photographs and digitally printed images, presented on materials such as fine art paper, photographic paper, wood, and metal. This range of processes reflects Rose’s ongoing engagement with both the material and conceptual possibilities of the photographic medium.
André Rose is a Durban-based public health physician and lens-based artist originally from the Northern Cape. His artistic practice uses visual storytelling to engage with pressing social issues, particularly those that intersect with inequality, memory, and the lived realities of public health and social struggles.
The public is invited to join Oliewenhuis Art Museum for the opening of Be[long]. The opening will take place at 18:00 on Tuesday, 7 July 2026 at Oliewenhuis Art Museum.
Everyone is welcome and entrance is free of charge. Refreshments will be served.
The artist will conduct walkabouts of the exhibition at 11:00 on Wednesday, 8 July 2026 and at 10:00 on Saturday, 11 July 2026.
The exhibition runs from 25 June to 16 August in the Main Building of Oliewenhuis Art Museum. Oliewenhuis Art Museum is located at 16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein and is open to the public from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 17:00, and on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays between 09:00 and 16:00. Please note that the main gate closes to new arrivals at 16:30 on weekdays and 15:30 on weekends; however, visitors already inside are welcome to enjoy the museum until closing time. A ramp at the main entrance provides wheelchair access, while a lift provides access to the Permanent Collection display areas on the 1st floor. A parking fee of R10 per vehicle is charged, but entrance to the museum is free.
For more information on Oliewenhuis Art Museum please contact the Museum at 078 968 4300 or oliewen@nasmus.co.za. Stay up to date by following Oliewenhuis Art Museum on Facebook, Instagram and X for all upcoming exhibitions and events.
