Michael Amery - Continuum (Solo) 2025

I think “Continuum” best describes how my work evolves - interlinking themes slowly developing over the years. Eleven years ago I had my first solo show with David Kurt, where I explored alien tree plantations in South Africa. Today that theme still feels relevant and continues to inspire my thinking. While there may only be a single Tokai Forest drawing in this body of work, I think its story speaks to the complexity of some of the problems facing South Africa.

Lower Tokai is the most clinical forest I’ve experienced. The forest floor is flat and clean, with trees organised very neatly into rows. This, along with the hush of a gentle breeze passing through the pines, creates a sense of disquiet - it’s as if there is a conflict between whether it’s alive or dead. Natural forests create a thick forest floor that retains water, with its seeping floor slowly contributing to the flow of perennial rivers. Due to this sponge-like effect, it was once thought that aggressively planting fast-growing alien forests could create a more sustainable and consistent supply of water in our arid climate. Yet we now know that in fact the opposite is true, and alien vegetation has had a detrimental effect on local ecosystems and South Africa’s hydrology.

I find Tokai particularly interesting, as the plantation is no longer operational, but the remaining forest has been defended against felling by residents. It is essentially a recreational forest, a communal area that provides a shaded place to exercise and play. Tokai was once an expansive plantation, which gave the area a rich green and natural feel and provided an outdoor haven to explore and create memories. I can understand why the community holds tightly onto what remains of it.

However, this area was once covered with rich fynbos unique to the Cape Flats. There remains a bank of Fynbos seeds lying dormant beneath the forest today, and because these seeds last for decades underground, were we to fell the remaining forest, restoration and rehabilitation could happen. But felling seems counter-intuitive in the fight against climate change. When we think of how best we can help redesign our world to reverse the effects of climate change and bring about balance and sustainability, we immediately think we need more trees, but really we need to restore biodiversity. The monoculture alien plantations are the antithesis to biodiversity and threaten to eradicate indigenous species. Yet we tend to have a strong emotional connection to trees, especially in the case of the beloved Tokai.

Large areas of lower Tokai are currently undergoing rehabilitation, and when I compare the two sites, the rehabilitated one gives me hope. I believe we can strike a balance by creating shaded areas that celebrate our biodiversity and provide us with the same enriching fix we once got from walking through the plantations of Tokai. I like to think of the remaining stand of forest as a strange monument to our industrious efforts and our naive control over nature. I love it as a monument, a piece of history, and a reminder of where we have gone wrong and what’s important going forward.

In her poem titled I’ve Come To Take You Home: A Tribute to Sarah Baartman, Diana Ferrus opens with “Remember the veld, the lush green grass beneath big oak trees?” These lines stood out to me, as the home she describes is colonial. I think this speaks to the complexity of South Africa’s history and how deep the impact of Europeanisation has been on the natural world. Oaks hold so much history for us in South Africa and are synonymous with Cape Dutch architecture, providing a cool, shady cover against the comparatively harsh, arid climate. Like so many of our alien species, they have become iconic in a South African landscape. Today though, our Oak trees are dying out because of another foreign species, the Shot Hole Borer Beetle. Similarly to the story of Tokai Forest, we feel deeply saddened by what we are losing.

In their native land, Oak trees support thousands of species, but I wonder what that number is in South Africa. The world feels like it’s at a place where it desperately needs us to foster biodiversity and help to regrow and nurture our micro ecosystems. Perhaps we should see our dying Oaks as an opportunity to rebuild and honour the beauty and the abundance of our indigenous species and create an environment of acceptance and positive change to restore and to grow.

We see what people care about by what they build. In a world that sometimes feels void of hope and things that are sacred and loved, I see glimmers of light. I see them in our expansive land, filled with natural beauty. I see them in our buildings, rich with history and heritage. I see them in the arts and culture that enrich our lives. Today, it’s up to us to shape our world, to take control, and to think about the legacy that we want to leave behind.