Io Makandal
Io Makandal (b. 1987, Johannesburg) is a prominent contemporary South African interdisciplinary artist and visual researcher. Her studio practice fluidly crosses drawing, photography, organic matter, and site-specific installation. Makandal completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 2010, before returning to her birthplace to establish her practice. Centred around feminist and environmental embodiments, her deeply conceptual work investigates the fragile binaries between nature and artifice, order and chaos, living and dying, and the rapid pace of ephemerality, entropy, and decay within urban ecologies during an era of profound global climate change.
Rather than viewing the urban cityscape as separate from nature, Makandal treats cities like Johannesburg as complex, hybrid environments. She frequently gathers urban detritus, industrial rubble, sand, clay, and endemic plant species to construct living, changing sculptures that serve as open-ended sites of germination and collective memory. A major milestone in her environmental practice is Ophidian’s Promise, a serpentine public eco-duct sculpture bridging the Jukskei River at Victoria Yards. Spearheaded by the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN) as part of the international A Feral Commons project, this public intervention restores native Soweto Highveld grasses while facilitating a safe spatial crossing for local urban wildlife.
Io Makandal (b. 1987, Johannesburg) is a prominent contemporary South African interdisciplinary artist and visual researcher. Her studio practice fluidly crosses drawing, photography, organic matter, and site-specific installation. Makandal completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 2010, before returning to her birthplace to establish her practice. Centred around feminist and environmental embodiments, her deeply conceptual work investigates the fragile binaries between nature and artifice, order and chaos, living and dying, and the rapid pace of ephemerality, entropy, and decay within urban ecologies during an era of profound global climate change.
Rather than viewing the urban cityscape as separate from nature, Makandal treats cities like Johannesburg as complex, hybrid environments. She frequently gathers urban detritus, industrial rubble, sand, clay, and endemic plant species to construct living, changing sculptures that serve as open-ended sites of germination and collective memory. A major milestone in her environmental practice is Ophidian’s Promise, a serpentine public eco-duct sculpture bridging the Jukskei River at Victoria Yards. Spearheaded by the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN) as part of the international A Feral Commons project, this public intervention restores native Soweto Highveld grasses while facilitating a safe spatial crossing for local urban wildlife.
