About the artist
Kai Lossgott’s work explores themes of personal and environmental health as aspects of human agency within the socio-ecological crisis. His videos are showcased on local street corners, at international museums and galleries, and at film festivals. Known for his public performance collaborations and moving image curation, Lossgott's work has been exhibited at notable venues, namely the Dak’art Biennale in Dakar, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Museum Africa in Johannesburg, Arnot Art Museum in New York and Whitechapel Gallery in London. In 2015, he received the Absa L’Atelier award.
Lossgott holds multiple tertiary qualifications in dance theatre, documentary film, creative writing and fine art, all earned cum laude, including an MA from the University of Cape Town. As an environmental activist and community arts facilitator, he has published and lectured at various South African universities, most recently in a part-time role at the University of Pretoria.
Born in Germany in 1980 and raised in South African, Lossgott currently lives and works in Johannesburg and beyond.
Conduits & Sensing the Location
Collagraph prints - 2017
This was part of a body of artwork for Lossgott's 2017 solo exhibition in the Absa Gallery, entitled Project Carbon: The destiny of things. The exhibition focused on the question of what is considered useful or useless (‘techne’) for the project of resource exploitation and consumption is a defining criterion in discerning between the human-centred (anthropocentric) point of view and one that is more life-centred (biocentric). The exhibition engaged with the nameless objects within the category of ‘waste’. Designed to be discarded but materially to outlive us, their creator
