Simnikiwe Buhlungu: hygrosummons (iter.02)

Simnikiwe Buhlungu is an artist based between Johannesburg and Amsterdam whose practice looks at how knowledge is produced, circulated, and felt. Through installations that bring together sound, sculpture, and publishing, she traces overlooked or invisible systems—working with water, language, and time as mutable forms of inquiry. Her research-led approach finds expression in projects that think with, rather than about, the systems and materials they engage—whether through a footnote, a water droplet, or a whispered story. Simnikiwe creates artworks that resist fixed categories, instead favouring mischief, poetry, and resonance as methods of sensing the world.

Her exhibition hygrosummons (iter.02) transforms the building of Kunstinstituut Melly into a porous, responsive site. Spanning multiple floors—from basement to rooftop, the installation features water samples collected from puddles in Rotterdam, Italy, and South Africa, as well as sonic sculptural instruments tuned to humidity and materials that warp, leak, and shift. These components gather into a constellation that treats the puddle not as a minor detail, but as a generative site of accumulation, contradiction, and relation.

hygrosummons (iter.02) is produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London and commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam. Lead Supporters: Mondriaan Fund and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication, besides Puleng; dontsa-ring and roving preoccupations (2024), which will be launched on Saturday 28 June in conjunction with North Sea Around Town.