UCT artists share their process

Fluid art: This piece, a detail from Prof Pippa Skotnes' Book of Blood and Milk installation, is one of the works featured in the two versions of Artworks in Progress - a new journal and an exhibition currently on at the Michaelis Galleries.

For the tenth volume of its Artworks in Progress journal, UCT's Michaelis School of Fine Art went for the hand-in-hand approach - launching the publication and opening an exhibition of the work featured in the publication at the same time.

Published every second year, Artworks in Progress celebrates the creative activities of 20 of the school's academic staff, many considered among the country's leading visual arts practitioners. In turn the namesake show, on at the Michaelis Galleries from 16 September to 6 October, allows locals the rare opportunity to enjoy the artists' works, which are often exhibited only internationally.

The exhibition ranges from painting to video projection, movable type to conceptual discourse. The journal, edited by Associate Professor Fritha Langerman, casts some light on each artist's concerns and working methods.

As a series, the publications are said to form "an intriguing archive of the evolving concerns of individual staff members, and of the shifting staff body, set against a background of two tumultuous decades of social change".

The title of the journal and the exhibition may be misleading: most pieces on display are in fact finished, although some may form part of broader projects that are still ongoing. More than that, the pieces are but a snapshot from the artists' still growing bodies of works.

"There is something very fluid and fascinating about the artistic process, and this exhibition captures the liveliness of what goes on in the studio - not just the final work," says Nadja Daehnke, curator at the Michaelis Galleries.