IO Makandal & Samantha McCulloch

Through an intensely collaborative practice, Io Makandal and Samantha McCulloch exchange objects, images, texts and actions across global exchange. Together, they investigate structures and frameworks through a site-responsive approach. Their collaborative works reflect on the role played by artists in urban contexts, the art object and its relationship to sites and the mediated body in public and private spaces.

Io Makandal and Samantha McCulloch collaborated on numerous projects since completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2010. In 2011, they co-founded the Open Drawer Projects (ODP), an artist collective based in Johannesburg. The collective's initiatives explored and mapped urban space through the expanded medium of drawing. Since 2013, their collaborative practice has facilitated exchange of objects and actions between South Africa and Australia. In their ongoing series of projects, they have examined and intervened in numerous public, private and institutional spaces, including the district of Braamfontein in Johannesburg, West Melbourne, and more recently, the FNB Johannesburg Art Fair at the Sandton Convention Centre, which treated the fair as a site to be interrogated.

Io Makandal and Samantha McCulloch's residency at NARS is made possible by the American Australian Association and Australia Council for the Arts.