Berman Contemporary
28.06 - 24.08.2025
Mellaney Roberts’ solo exhibition at Berman Contemporary, ‘Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie’, explores how clay can be used as a mnemonic agent, moulding and keeping memories of a personal and collective history that is innately connected with the land in the Eastern Cape, where Roberts is from. Roberts’ identity as a Coloured person is central to the works. She traces lines of connection back to the communities in her home town of Baviaanskloof. She writes, “The making begins with contemplating my lineage, my ancestral knowledge and ultimately my becoming.” Roberts’ work, therefore, becomes archaeological and provides sites for excavation, both emotional and ontological.
The exhibition is grounded by a central work, The Ancestor, which features a conical sculpture resting on a bed of red sand, circled by what appear to be short wooden rods. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the rods themselves are made of clay, but have been moulded, fired, and painted to have the appearance of burnt wood. Herein lies the depth of Roberts’ technical skill with her preferred medium.
Clay is a significant component of the artist’s creative practice. The medium itself involves a transformation, both chemically and aesthetically – the wet clay is moulded and becomes dried clay, which in turn becomes ceramic after firing. The use of sand, water, and fire to create the works evokes a sense of connectedness with the Earth and with the land where Roberts comes from in the Eastern Cape. She writes, “These sculptures and installations explore the intersection of the tangible and the intangible memories that bind me to the Baviaanskloof.” Clay holds the memory of the hands that moulded it during the first stages of its being. Fingerprints are left behind, while the fingers and palms begin to press, pull, and flatten the wet clay into an alternate form. In a way, clay as a medium is a mnemonic device in the sense that memory is directly enacted in its moulding. Memory manifests as a physical object. The clay begins as something else and is eventually wrought into a different shape that it must remember.
Mellaney Roberts, Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie, 2025
The Ancestor provides the conceptual and aesthetic core of the exhibition, having the appearance of being a sacred symbol because of the way it is placed, with the other works orbiting around it. A length of rope trails behind the central piece, linking it to another installation called Nestlings: The Inheritance. The rope acts as a physical link between the two works, and it resembles an umbilical cord, the bed of sand a womb. These symbolisms seem to indicate a complementary theme of birth and rebirth – not necessarily in reference to motherhood, but rather the idea of being borne of a certain place and time, after which one rebuilds and reimagines one’s identity. The artist herself is the product of a particular socio-political context, which informs the way she interacts with her art, both in a theoretical and physical manner.
Subtle cracks and ruptures in the sculptures are representative of lost connections and broken ties. In Nestlings: The Inheritance, small oval ceramic shapes are connected with delicate strands of rope, making the work have the appearance of a family tree. Some of the egg-like sculptures are untouched, disconnected from the others. They could represent lost connections, distant relatives that are unknown to the rest of the family structure, or people who have either left or been ostracised from the community. With this work, Roberts poses the question: How do we build community when some of our ties are lost or broken? And, taken one step further, the question evolves: What does it take (rebuilding, shaping, moulding) to create a new identity out of a fraught or incomplete history?
Mellaney Roberts, Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie, 2025
I found myself returning again and again to the exhibition’s title, ‘Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie’, which translates to, ‘where blood doesn’t flow.’ I couldn’t help but think about how paradoxical this title seems in the context of the exhibition, the entire focus of which is heritage, identity, and inheritance. How can one build community out of a history or context where blood doesn’t flow? But perhaps the answer to this is that community-making involves forging connections out of things other than blood. In other words, it takes more than inheritance to belong.
Mellaney Roberts, Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie, 2025
Blood itself is a potent symbol which encapsulates many things: lineage, heritage, collective history, violence, and womanhood. In the context of this exhibition, all interpretations become relevant, not least because of South Africa’s unique relationship to racial and gendered violence. While the works do not address South Africa’s violent history directly, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge it, particularly when the exhibition engages with identity and belonging, both of which became warped and twisted under the oppression of apartheid. The apartheid era classifications of Coloured and Cape Coloured are historically fraught, but Roberts is engaged in a process of reclaiming and reimagining. This process is echoed in the works themselves, which are made from a material that is inherently malleable. And much like clay, the nervous system and the blood are mnemonic, carrying the story of a community’s collective history into future generations.
With this exhibition, Roberts challenges the viewer to consider the complexities of wrestling with collective and personal histories. Building community means fashioning something from the Earth, using the elements at one’s disposal and creating a new identity out of them by any means possible. That being said, the central work, The Ancestor, provides the exhibition with a conceptual weight that would be lost otherwise. The other works act to enhance the story that The Ancestor builds in its own right.
