The

Garden

that

Eats

Frantz

Fanon—reflections

on

Nolan

Oswald

Dennis's

installation

'garden

for

fanon'

Mail & Guardian visit Johannesburg-based artist Nolan Oswald Dennis at his studio, revisiting how he stepped into the art world from architecture and how the conceptual trajectory of his work is intimately connected to dialogue and exploration with other practitioners.

Dennis began his career as a student of architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand but grew critical of its narrow focus on fixed structures. “I became an artist through working with other people,” he says, finding the art world offered “more space to think and to work in meaningful ways”.

Dennis's work has appeared in multiple biennales including Berlin, Dakar, Liverpool and Shanghai, as well as the Front International Cleveland Triennial in the US. Under Goodman Gallery, he has also exhibited at the Swiss Institute in New York and Gasworks in London, won the 2023 Sesc_Videobrasil Jury Prize and had a monograph published with Zeitz MOCAA and Koenig.

Writer Thembeka Heidi Sincuba in conversation with Dennis describes and unpacks the artist's installation 'garden for fanon' (2021), first shown in 'conditions' (2021) at Goodman Gallery. While the work began in 2021, which marked 60 years since Fanon's 'The Wretched of the Earth' was written, Dennis’s installation has been exhibited numerous times, now part of the 'Re:Fuse-Ability' exhibition at University of Johannesburg’s FADA Gallery, until 6 September 2025.