Exhibitions NOW SHOWING
Temporary Exhibitions
26 July – 6 September 2025
The Barnes Road Herbarium, in Brixton, houses the studio where this exhibition was made. This exhibition explores and presents imperial technologies of illustration, herbarium sheets and eco-printing where realistic renditions are disrupted by the secret chemical lives of leaves - revealing the biochemistry of the leaf not visible to the human eye. We witness the death of a leaf in the birth of the image.
Isabel Hofmeyr is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand and was Global Distinguished Professor at New York University from 2013 to 2022. She has worked extensively on print culture and book history and has combined these with environmental and oceanic themes.
Walkabouts with Isabel:
Join Professor Emeritus, Isabel Hofmeyr, for a walkabout of her exhibition and a short archival herbarium pressing demo.
23 August | 10:00
6 September | 10:00
Spaces are limited. RSVP to tammy.hodgskiss@wits.ac.za
For walkabouts and exhibition events, please check our social media.
21 August – 16 October 2025
Explore the many meanings of home through clay sculptures by children from the Three2Six project, Raku-fired vessels by Nina Shand & Kate Shand, images documenting refugee and migrant children’s experiences (Three2Six and Alliance Francaise), and Windybrow Arts Centre’s reimagined Victorian dollhouse. The exhibition blends art therapy and arts-based approaches to migration, in collaboration with Nereida- Ripero Muñiz, to reflect on belonging, creativity and identity in a situation of displacement. New Additions: ‘Leaving No Child Behind’ – A powerful photo series by Three2Six & Alliance Française, shedding light on the lives of refugee and migrant children; ‘Doll’s Building and City Project’ – A reimagined Victorian doll’s house, transformed into a South African context by Windybrow Art Centre.
Activations of ‘The Meaning of Home’:
Workshop 1: My favourite things at home (Ages 4–8) | Origins Centre. R100 kids, R150 adults. Tickets on webtickets
6 September | 11:00–12:30 https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx...
Workshop 2: Inside and outside containers (Ages 9–12+) | Origins Centre. R100 kids, R150 adults. Tickets on webtickets
20 September | 11:00–12:30 https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx...
Panel Discussion: Art & Social Transformation
6 September| 13:00–14:00 (Lunchtime, venue TBC)
Enquiries: tammy.hodgskiss@wits.ac.za
For walkabouts and exhibition events, please check our social media.
Permanent Exhibitions
The interactive exhibits at Origins Centre take visitors on an extraordinary journey of discovery, which begins with the origins of humankind in Africa and then moves through the development of technology, art, culture, and symbolism. The journey continues with an exploration of the diverse Southern African rock art traditions. These ancient masterworks, and the artists, are illustrated through contemporary art installations by well-known South African artists.
Our permanent exhibitions:
- Indigenous Gardens – edible and medicinal plants from different biomes that were used in the past and currently by ritual specialists throughout southern Africa.
- African Origins - Early African stone tools from 2.6 million years ago; the origins of humanity in Africa and what makes us human; The sands of time across the world; replica hominin skulls showing our human evolution over the last 7 million years
- The San and Rock Art - San and their Hunter-Gatherer past; San genocide and Sara Baartman; The eland in San belief; San painting technologies; The trance dance and how San ritual specialists enter the spirit world; rain making and neuropsychology; Interpreting a rock art panel.
- Rock Engraving Archive - Varied engraved rock art traditions & styles in Southern Africa. Can be explored through augmented reality (Download the app on Android or IOS – originscentrear)
- Conservation - Conservation problems facing rock art sites today and site etiquette
- Tapestry Room – Understanding and interpreting San Art; The history of the San told through 11 embroidered panels; The ‘White Lady of the Brandberg’
- Khoe Art - The geometric art found in southern Africa; Who are the Khoekhoen?
- Early (Iron Age) Farmers - The rise of complex societies, including information on Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe; Protest art of the Makgabeng
- Installations by contemporary artists – One Being by Deborah Glencross; World Map by Walter Oltman; Axis Mundi by Russel Scott; Synanthrope by Hannelie Coetzee; Signs of people by Willem Boshoff; Threads of knowing by Tamar Mason; Double Vision by Pippa Scotness & Malcolm Payne; Glass Beads by Martli Jansen van Rensburg.