To Teach in Ways That Teach Us to Care for The Soul is Maleke's compelling solo exhibition opening at Nelson Mandela University’s Bird Street Gallery in Gqeberha on 30 June and running until 29 July. Presented in partnership with the Standard Bank Young Artist Award of which Maleke is the 2025 recipient. The award recognises artists on the threshold of significant national and international impact.
Born and based in Johannesburg, Maleke has exhibited in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Switzerland and the United States, in leading institutions and galleries including Iziko Museums, Stevenson Gallery, Jenkins Johnson Gallery and the Kunsthalle Bern.
She explains that To Teach in Ways That Teach Us to Care for The Soul asks and reveals what it might mean to nurture our inner life in a society preoccupied with productivity, achievement and external validation. In an interview with SABC News she said: “The project brings together art and education, sharing with people in an experimental way of approaching drawing that is free and fun, that allows you to let go and trust in your intuition and inner voice to make the marks for you.”
At Bird Street Gallery, visitors will encounter Maleke’s immersive installation that moves fluidly between drawing, printmaking, installation and writing in a space where visual language and literary expression converge. It unfolds through a flutter of everyday materials: thread, toilet paper, wax paper, clothing clasps, an assortment of fragments, all carriers of memory and meaning.
“The way that I draw is about mapping different conversations and spaces, both real and imaginary,” Maleke explains. “It’s about processing my thoughts and crossing between different realities and worlds, spiritually, emotionally, mentally – all these elements that make up our being; our way of thinking, feeling and knowing.”
The visual language evokes experiences familiar to many contemporary South Africans. Threads pierce delicate paper surfaces while simultaneously holding them together. Throughout the exhibition, tension emerges as a recurring theme - of navigating loss while pursuing hope, of carrying histories while imagining futures; and sustaining oneself amid social and personal uncertainty.
Maleke says: “When you are making, part of your life is going into it and it has been so nourishing to pull back all these pieces of fragmentation to become aligned again.”
Alongside her visual arts practice, Maleke is an accomplished writer. She was shortlisted for the inaugural Toyin Falola Prize for her short story Eskia and published the artist's book Drawing is Still Writing in 2023. This dual identity as artist and writer enriches her approach to visual language. For Maleke, drawing is not separate from language; it is another form of language.
The exhibition text, written by curator and writer Tšhegofatšo Mabaso, describes the work as a pilgrimage towards "inner vitality and source"; activities that include speaking, breathing, walking, dreaming, writing and simply being.
Artist Jonathan van der Walt, the Gallery Manager and Curator at the Bird Street Gallery, and a lecturer in the Visual Arts Department at Nelson Mandela University, says: “This exhibition carries particular significance because the gallery functions as a learning and teaching environment where students encounter contemporary artistic practices and engage directly with leading voices in South African art.
“The exhibition resonates strongly with the Visual Arts Department's commitment to critical inquiry, experimentation and socially engaged creative practice. Further enriching the experience is Maleke's participatory drawing room, which invites visitors to become active contributors to the artwork in a shared act of dialogue and creative exchange, reinforcing the role of the gallery as a site where art, community and education converge.”
Exhibition details
Exhibition: To Teach in Ways That Teach Us to Care for The Soul
Artist: Nyakallo Maleke
Venue: Bird Street Gallery
Dates: 30 June – 29 July 2026
Artist Walkabout: 11 July 2026 at 10:00–11:00
Hosted by: Nelson Mandela University Department of Visual Arts in partnership with Standard Bank Arts. -ENDS-
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About Nelson Mandela University
Nelson Mandela University is in the coastal city of Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, with a campus in George.
The largest university in the southern and eastern Cape; its existence is a result of a merger of the University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth Technikon and the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University. It was initially named Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2004, in line with the restructuring of the higher education sector. However, in 2017, it was renamed Nelson Mandela University, the only higher education institution in the world to carry the name of South Africa’s former president, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Its values are based on respect for diversity, excellence, Ubuntu, social justice and equality, integrity and sustainable stewardship.
This comprehensive University offers degree, diploma and certificate courses. Spread over seven campuses; it is home to over 30 000 students. More than 500 study programmes are offered in seven faculties: Business and Economic Sciences; Education; Engineering, the Built Environment and Technology; Health Sciences; Humanities; Law and Science.
Nelson Mandela University is reputed for its excellence in, among others, art and design, building, chartered accounting, engineering, health and environmental sciences and information technology. Its state-of-the-art Ocean Sciences campus is one of its kind in the country. This campus’s range of marine and maritime education and training, research, innovation and engagement programmes is aimed at supporting the continent’s blue (ocean) economy.
The University is home to the country’s 10th Medical School, unique in South Africa as its comprehensive primary healthcare approach focuses on the four pillars of medicine: disease prevention, health promotion, treatment and rehabilitative medicine.