Ni-Shaat Bardien

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ARTIST CATALOGUE

Spices, Threads & Memory.

Spices, Threads, and Memory is a deeply personal journey that unpacks my Cape Malay heritage through the lens of food, family, and faith. Each piece in this exhibition is like a page in a family album, where layers of memory, tradition, and identity are revealed. It’s an intimate exploration of who I am and where I come from, rooted in the stories, struggles, and resilience of my ancestors.

Food is at the heart of this exploration. In my family, cooking was an act of love and survival, a way to preserve our heritage through generations. Spices like turmeric and paprika, essential to Cape Malay cuisine, become the core materials in my artistic process. I use them in alternative photographic techniques to create pieces that are as fragile and rich as memory itself. These works reflect the act of remembering—how our histories are sometimes blurry, sometimes vivid, but always present.

By incorporating sewing, embroidery, and calligraphy, I pay tribute to the women in my family—my mother and grandmother—whose hands shaped our traditions. These methods, passed down through generations, allow me to stitch together fragments of our collective past. The artworks become more than just visual pieces; they are a living family album, where each thread, each spice, reveals something new about our identity.

This exhibition is about discovering who we are by looking back, not only to heal and reclaim our past, but to connect with the universal human experience of memory, belonging, and culture in shaping our identities.