The We Are What Remains exhibition activates the archive of selected !Xun and Khwe linocuts created by San soldiers who were forcibly relocated during apartheid in South Africa, including during the period of displacement at Schmidtsdrift. The San are Indigenous communities of Southern Africa with long-standing cultural, ecological, and storytelling traditions. The linocuts are transformed into an immersive, multi-sensory environment using projection mapping, animation, sound, and spatial installation. Visitors move through layered projections, suspended prints, and shifting light and shadow shaped by the artists’ voices, songs, and reflections.

Developed in collaboration with the original artists and !Khwa ttu Heritage Centre, the work extends the archive’s presence while centring the artists as living authors. Guided by a reparative impulse, it creates a space of return, recognition, and renewed presence for histories shaped by displacement and erasure.

Created during exile, these artworks function as both visual record and artistic expression of lived experience. The work is grounded in careful collaboration with seven of the surviving artists and the communities connected to the archive. At its core is a relationship to land, environment, and social life shaped by resilience, continuity, and cultural survival.