JEAN BRUNDRIT
These images are from a project photographed in Antarctica, Over the Horizon. For this project Jean replaced her glass lens with one made out of ice. She was interested to see if ice could form an image, and if so how would ice see the world.
AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2024
Jean Brundrit is a visual artist from South Africa who works photographically. She has exhibited extensively in South Africa and contributed to a number of international exhibitions. She teaches photography at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Her artistic practice focusses on the environment, the impact of climate change and how this is represented in art, as well as the interconnectedness of humans and their relationship to the natural world. Jean is interested in the advances of visualizing technology including photography – in its broadest definition – and the opportunity that this presents in making things never observed before visible.
For one of her recent projects, “Over the Horizon”, photographed in Antarctica, Jean replaced her glass lens with one made out of ice. She was interested to see if ice could form an image, and if so how would ice see the world.
https://humanities.uct.ac.za/michaelis/contacts/jean-brundrit
Jean’s Do Picho Project
I read about the plastic pellets that had washed up on the beaches in Galicia. I am very interested in environmental issues, and this made me think about how the world’s oceans are connected and what happens in Galicia (the ship losing containers filled with plastic pellets) could affect an area much larger than the local shoreline. Previously I have researched the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt which is a global circulation system in the oceans. With global temperatures rising there is the potential that ocean currents’ flow will be disrupted and consequently the water (and what it carries with it) will no longer follow established routes.
I wanted to connect this to the pilgrimage routes (the closeness to Santiago de Compostela) that have been followed for centuries, and the notion of the sea and how water travels within the ocean. Before the residency at Do Picho, I took part in at a global conference focused on Antarctic research. It was inevitable that Antarctica, a major driver in global currents, would be referenced in this project. I wanted to draw a connection between Antarctica via the Atlantic Ocean, to the coast of Galicia. The Atlantic also connects my hometown, Cape Town, with the Galician coast. While I wanted to recognize the specificity of Galicia, I was also thinking about its position globally.
My artwork is photographic. I brought some existing artwork with me to Do Picho. I made these images in Antarctica, photographed with an ice lens. The residency work related to and built on the ideas present in the existing images.
While at Do Picho, I listened to a radio interview with Alfredo Conde in which he talks about the magical quality of Galicia and the transformative power of the elements to shift what we think we see. In my project, I have been investigating abstraction as a way to reference this transformative experience and relate the residency images to my Antarctic project.
Most importantly the residency artwork developed during the time I spend at Do Picho, influenced by the experience of being immersed in the environment.
The following are a few first images of work during the residency. More will follow as I continue working on the project. The work will be exhibited at Castelo de Pambre in Palas de Rei from September to November 2025. I very much look forward to coming back then!
