The Things We Carry

Artists - Zimkhitha Mabonga, Phatsimo Kashe-Katiya , Micaiah Cloete, Buhle Hillie, and Jordan Walters
Supervisor - Professor Fritha Langerman
IDM Collaborator - Mr Liam Bell, Proteomics technology platform (D-CYPHR)

Artists' Statement:

‘The Things We Carry’, with a focus on proteomics, unfolds as a meditation on the unseen infrastructures of life, being the cellular, the molecular, and the systemic. Inspired by the study of microtubule transportation with proteins and their intricate folding patterns, this work translates microscopic movement into material form. The installation suspends a large, tactile “microtubule” structure, wrapped in woven red and blue fabric, holding within it two cargo spheres - disco balls draped in textile membranes.

Our depiction aims to reflect the way in which proteins walk in the cell transporting cargo with students, faculty members and visitors  in the IDM who walk on the ramp below, transporting knowledge, ideas, and discoveries ahead. Essentially, the juxtaposition of the two journeys emphasizes a very straightforward fact: structure is function. 

By translating the cell-scape into a visible, playful, and wondrous form, this piece connects the microscopic and the human realms. It situates the scientific mission and purpose of the Institute within a metaphor, representing that it is precision, creativity, but most importantly, curiosity that drives science forward. In the language of biology, microtubules move proteins within the cell — yet here, they carry questions of memory, care, and connection. What happens when we make the invisible processes of life visible through art? How can the microscopic become a mirror for the social, the emotional, the human?

The work engages the space as a living environment of circulation - of people, air, and light. The suspended form responds to the architecture’s vertical openness, echoing the building’s scientific purpose while disrupting its clinical precision with softness, tactility, and play. The disco-ball “cargoes” refract light across the walls, suggesting the constant flow and reflection of cellular communication. The intervention asks viewers to look up - to shift their habitual line of sight. This act of looking becomes an ethical gesture, allowing curiosity toward the overlooked. In its quiet hanging, it transforms the passageway into a site of wonder. The installation invites curiosity and wonder, along with celebrating the centrality of proteins in life but also reminding all who pass through, IDM students; staff and researchers -  that their own work, like the work of proteins, is essential to the larger functioning of the whole.

For more information on the project, read here.