The Wits Art Museum opened the Gaia exhibition at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts exhibition.
The term Gaia has multiple meanings, primarily rooted in ancient Greek mythology and modern scientific theory. In Greek mythology, Gaia is the personification of the Earth, a primordial goddess and mother of all creation. In a scientific context, the Gaia hypothesis, proposed by James Lovelock in 1972, suggests that the Earth is a self-regulating system where living and non-living components interact to maintain conditions suitable for life.
'GAIA: Dialogues between the book arts, natural sciences & plant humanities' realises the long-held wish of late Senior Special Collections Librarian at the JGCBA, Rosalind Cleaver to curate an exhibition of artists’ books from the collection that reflect both an artist’s reading of the world and our place within it, as well as a call to stewardship and to tread lightly on the earth.
To Rosalind’s initial selection of books, the curators have added others from the collection, material displays from the Wits collections held at C.E. Moss Herbarium, and Life Sciences Museum, and selected artworks completed by Rosalind while exploring South Africa’s grand biodiversity.
Featuring spectacular artists’ books and life sciences specimens, Gaia reflects the blessings of our planet and calls on us to rethink how we live, take responsibility for our impact, and engage more ethically with the more-than-human world.