Diana Vives
17 March – 12 May 2025
During her residency, Diana Vives collaborated with her partner, Douglas Gimberg, on a series of different works whilst presenting an exhibition, titled Folie à Deux in the Project Space.
Directly translated, the title means ‘the madness of two’. In French, for instance, it’s used to describe a couple who are always engaged in love and conflict; anything that generates enough friction to create either a downward or upward spiral. It is also a term used in psychiatry for a complex disorder characterised by the contagion of a specific delusion shared by two or more people. Yet for their residency, the artists come as one. Theirs is a madness shared with the Earth and all of its output — a timeous theme in our information age. Folie à Deux also concedes to the beauty and passion of the co-dependent romance of human life with the Earth, the stories we tell to make sense of it, as well as our attempts to contain, manage, and manipulate it.
The exhibition groups six of the artists' works into three distinct pairs (one work by each), echoing the resonance of their engagements, and the different associations that emerge when brought together. Central to both of their practices is the transformation of matter — whether living, non-living or human — in states of entanglement and flux. Existing in states of tension or balance, the works implicate the past as an active participant in the present, drawing on the self-referential, physical, and metaphorical properties of the materials to touch on themes of extraction, entropy, and regeneration.
A fitting home for this show, the Cradle of Humankind brings to the fore the origin of our species as well as the five mass extinction events that have occurred since life first emerged on Earth 4.6 billion years ago (notably,
several of the materials in the works predate these events). This symbolic framework places in stark relief the absurdity of certain human endeavours in the modern world.
To learn more, access the catalogue in the archive section below.
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Diana Vives was born in Brazil, where she spent her early childhood before moving to Switzerland. A Swiss citizen of Spanish, Scottish, and Greek descent from Alexandria, she has lived and worked across four continents. This broad exposure has shaped a polycultural perspective and her belief in art's potential to create common ground. ‘I work predominantly in wood and stone, exploring connective threads that mediate the rift between nature and culture,’ notes Vives. ‘My practice draws on themes of memory, myth, and language as a form of cultural geology. My creative process pairs interdisciplinary research with a deep commitment to craft and a respect for the resistance and self-referential power of materials – each bearing complex histories of climate, displacement, and exploitation. As such, the Mono-ha and Arte Povera movements were formative influences.’
She hold an MFA in sculpture (Michaelis School of Art, with distinction), and degrees in Political Science (Cambridge), Psychology (with distinction), and an MBA (UCT). Her early career began in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, followed by roles in the music industry (EMI), design and architecture journalism (Condé Nast), and brand development in the luxury sector, later expanding her focus to sustainability projects. Before becoming a full-time practicing artist (in 2020), she held executive positions in the art world, including as curator for a private collector in France and Switzerland, and as Director of the Foundation Art Institutions of the 21st Century, where she remains on the advisory board.
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