To relocate between countries entails a profound shift in one’s natural and cultural surroundings. As a migrant, navigating the duality between countries, languages, and cultures, I explore themes of loss, transformation, reintegration, and belonging. Nature metaphors, such as germination, root growth, and intertwining vines, illustrate the attempted assimilation into a new community.  Personally, I believe that all migrants find themselves in that in-between space, with a foot in each country. Always the outsider, on the margin – neither here nor there, both here and there.

My work repurposes reclaimed textiles into art, honouring their history while infusing them with new meaning and purpose. By embracing manual techniques like slow stitching, my art-making process takes on a meditative quality, with methods such as wrapping and binding serving as metaphors for shelter, protection, and preservation.

Enroot references on the one hand the ‘putting down roots’ in a new environment, to integrate with the community and nature, and on the other hand it also comments on the fact that migrants are always emotionally en route. 

Originally from South Africa, Wouna le Roux has made New Zealand her home since 2010. With an education in Fine Art and History of Art, Classical Music, Philosophy, and a PhD in Afrikaans Literature, her passion for creative expression has been a constant throughout her life. 

www.wounaleroux.com

@wiwi_makes_wiwi_creates