Zanoxolo Sylvestre Mqeku's practice is built from the ground up — literally. His sand casting technique, developed over 15 years, begins with the earth's surface as both material and philosophical starting point. Sand as a natural material gives itself to the artist's instinct, committing memory and body to its textures, colours, sounds, smells, and temperatures. Clay, when mixed with water, becomes the recording tool — capturing the imprints made in sand, then fired into ceramic form durable enough to preserve those marks for up to 25,000 years.

His work asks a fundamental question: if visualising our anthropogenic influence is a creative priority, what does an earth-focused practice look like? From the tallest structures to the deepest excavations, humans have always altered space by first relying on the earth's surface and leaving their imprints on it. Mqeku takes that instinct — ancient, embodied, and universal — and transforms it into a sculptural language that insists on taking from nature only what can be put back.

Making marks, as the late South African artist Judith Mason wrote, is an instinct. A benevolent act. Mqeku's ceramics are that act made durable, made visible, made into a conversation between the human hand and the earth it has always been drawn to touch.