6414.36 NAUTICAL MILES
Research installation and exhibition
A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa.Co-curated with Lemeeze Davids
20/04/26 - 02/05/26
Full project page available on A4 Arts Foundation website here.
6414.36 nautical miles is an ongoing curatorial research project beginning with a friendship between two curators across distance. First held in the form of calls between Cape Town and Hong Kong, the project unfolds through coordinates that are both intimate and socio-historical.
Davids and Vabre Chau draw attention to their shared inheritances of imperialism without trying to flatten either city’s experience into a forced commonality, rather investigating what this unexpected yet generous coupling can generate. Looking at the ways the ecological, cultural and economic realms have been informed by colonial ripples, they explore how the urban and natural environment carries traces of the past while conditioning the present.
Concluding a year of research with essays, roundtable discussions, physical correspondence and field research, Davids and Vabre Chau reflected on the tension between information overload and aesthetic simplification. They considered how arts practitioners might make research felt rather than understood.
Installation view: 6414.36 nautical miles | Expression of Research, April 20–May 2, 2026. Image © A4 Arts Foundation.
Formed as a research installation in the A4 Arts Foundation’s Reading Room, Davids and Vabre Chau developed an open presentation taking the form of chronological graph, pinpointing the main themes of their inquiry. The present format is less an attempt at an answer than a mode of sensing. The researchers prioritise images and interactive elements, introducing points of contact that slowly unravel through audio discussions that viewers can access through their phones.
Artworks by Jody Brand, Jes Fan and Nolan Oswald Dennis appear as potent entry points within the project. The sculpture ‘10 Hail Mary’s’ by Brand features abalone shells, linking their ancestral knowledge and faith to a resonance between Cantonese cuisine, Cape indigenous foraging, and contemporary trade. Dennis’s ‘model for an endless column’ foregrounds an underlying concern of the researchers of turning inherited geographies on their head and insisting on other orientations of the world. Jes Fan's ‘Palimpsest’ uses the oyster as a metaphor for colonial violence and expropriation by embedding words within the oysters' mantles, documenting its struggle with the intrusion.
Installation view: 6414.36 nautical miles | Expression of Research, April 20–May 2, 2026. Image © A4 Arts Foundation.
Installation view: 6414.36 nautical miles | Expression of Research, April 20–May 2, 2026. Image © A4 Arts Foundation.
Artwork: Jody Brand, 10 Hail Mary’s (2021). Perlemoen shells, beads, string, prayer. Dimensions variable. Artwork © Jody Brand, loaned courtesy of the artist. Image © A4 Arts Foundation.
Artwork: Nolan Oswald Dennis, model for an endless column (2021). Altered PET plastic globe models, steel rod. 220 x 30 x 30 cm. Artwork © Nolan Oswald Dennis, loaned courtesy of a private collection
Installation view: 6414.36 nautical miles | Expression of Research, April 20–May 2, 2026. Image © A4 Arts Foundation.
Artwork: Jes Fan, Palimpsest (2023). Colour video, sound. 5 min 43 sec. Artwork © Jes Fan, loaned courtesy of Akeroyd Collection.