In this conversation, South African ceramic artist, academic, and educator Mellaney Roberts reflects on Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie, the body of work she created for the SOLO section of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2026. Roberts discusses how her practice begins with an act of listening to the land, to material, and to the histories embedded within them. Drawing on the landscapes of the Eastern Cape, particularly the Baviaanskloof, she speaks about clay as a mnemonic material that carries traces of place, memory, and inherited knowledge.
In this interview, Roberts reveals how processes of walking, collecting, and working with clay become forms of attentive listening, allowing cracks, fractures, and tactile surfaces to emerge as material echoes of fragmented histories, shifting borders, and the layered identities that shape both personal and collective experience.
A sound piece created especially for the fair by the artist is available at the end of this interview.
In the work you’ll present at the fair, Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie, you explore how clay serves as a mnemonic agent, preserving personal and collective histories connected to the land of the Eastern Cape. In this context, how do you perceive the act of listening to the land and its histories, and how does this listening manifest in the forms and textures of your ceramic works?
In order to listen to the land, you must first acknowledge that it has its story, its history, and its own memory. Listening to the land requires me to be patient, to slow down, and to pay attention to what it is communicating. It makes me question what remains when language falls away. The Eastern Cape landscape, particularly the Baviaanskloof, holds histories that are not documented, but are present in soil, erosion, and inherited memory. The practice of listening to the land becomes performative, the act of walking, collecting, remembering, and working with clay as material evidence of place.
This act of listening manifests materially through the surface and form of my artworks. Cracks, rough textures, and uneven edges are not simply aesthetic decisions; they are responses to what the land carries. I allow the clay to retain traces of pressure, fracture, and repair, mirroring the way memory is held in fragments. My artworks become quiet objects that do not speak loudly but resonate through their tactile presence.
Your sculptures often depict the fluid shift of borders, using them as metaphors for the transformation of identity as one navigates various spaces. In what ways does your work resonate with the theme of Echoes of Humanity, capturing the reverberations of personal and collective identities across time and space?
My work understands identity as something porous rather than fixed. Borders, whether geographical, historical, or emotional, are never stable. They shift through migration, memory, loss, and belonging. The Baviaanskloof itself exists as both a physical place and an inherited idea, shaped by displacement and continuity at once.
Echoes of Humanity resonates strongly with this understanding of identity as reverberation. My artworks function as echoes, forms that carry traces of earlier gestures, histories, and presences. Through repetition, fragmentation, and material transformation, the work reflects how personal histories are always entangled with collective ones. What emerges is not a single narrative, but layers of collective memories across generations and landscapes.
The SOLO section’s theme, Echoes of Humanity, invites artists to explore how listening can be a radical and relational act. Given your use of materials like clay and natural elements, how do you approach the materiality of your work as a form of listening?
Materiality in my practice begins with recognising that clay already carries its own history before I shape it. Listening to clay means working with its limits, its memory, and its resistance rather than imposing control over it. Clay shrinks, cracks, stains, and remembers the touch of the maker. These behaviours guide my making process.
In this way, listening becomes relational. The material, the land it comes from, and the histories it holds all actively participate when I make my works. Lastly, the kiln process contributes to conservation, transforming softness into permanence, allowing material processes to remain visible. The work holds space for what cannot be fully articulated in words.
Listening is both conceptual and physical. It happens through the hands, through time, and through the quiet negotiation between maker, material, and memory.
Sound Piece: Waar Bloed Nie Loop Nie (2026). Courtesy of Mellaney Roberts.
Mellaney Roberts is represented by Berman Contemporary. She was the recipient of the RDC prize at the 2026 edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair.