Jenna Burchell is a project-based South African artist who creates alternative archives that fuse digital and natural elements to preserve stories and memories. Her interactive works invite audiences to engage with complex, often overlooked narratives—whether everyday or historical. Projects like Songsmith and Heartbreak Pots exemplify her approach to blending technology and storytelling in the service of history, place, and connection.

Guided by relational and stochastic processes, Burchell collaborates with the materials, landscapes, and people she encounters. These interactions allow her works to grow organically, embedding layers of meaning and memory into each piece. The results are sculptural sound objects and large-scale interactive environments - vessels, archives, and libraries that preserve and share layered stories. 

Sound is a recurring element, inviting audiences into narratives through touch and interactive technology. Recurring themes such as fracture and repair weave in and out of her works. 

Through her practice, she creates spaces where complex stories are acknowledged, preserved, and shared.

Jenna Burchell (b. 1985) is a South African artist who has exhibited at national and international museums, galleries, and institutions. She has presented special projects at art fairs such as Art15 (London) and the FNB Joburg Art Fair (South Africa). She is a recipient of the Thami Mnyele Fine Art Award and has participated in artist residencies at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (UK) and Nirox Sculpture Park (South Africa).

Her major projects, Homing (2014–2016) and Songsmith (2016–ongoing), are evolving bodies of work spanning multiple years. A permanent outdoor Songsmith installation resides at Spier Wine Estate, Stellenbosch. She was commissioned for a large-scale memorial at the Sarah Baartman Center of Memory (2019–ongoing) and recently completed a community-driven visual redress project at Stellenbosch University (2024).

In 2024, Burchell debuted Heartbreak Pots at The Wake, the central curated exhibition of the Dak’Art Biennale.

Burchell is affiliated with:
Sulger-Buel Gallery in London, United Kingdom.
Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa.

2024 - Songsmith (Dedication Stone). Landmark commissioned by the Tygerburg Medical Campus Visual Reddress Committy, Stellenbosch University. 

2020 - Upcoming. Songsmith (Sān). Memorial commissioned for Sarah Bartmann Center of Remembrance, Hankey, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Commissioned by the Department of Arts and Culture.

2018 - Songsmith (The Great Karoo). Permanent Installation of 12 outdoor artworks. Commissioned by Spier Arts Trust for Spier Wine Farm, Stellenbosch, South Africa. 

2016 - Temple Israel Heritage Center Exhibition. Exhibition design and production in the 1983 bombed Temple Israel in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Commissioned by Temple Israel. 

2013 - Fietas MIA Museum. Museum Design and production. Pageview, Johannesburg. Commissioned by Salma Patel. 

2011 - Satyagraha House. Museum Design and production in one of Gandhi’s South African dwellings. Commissioned by Voyer Du Monde.

Grants: 

2015 - Soundlands Public Art Grant: Songsmith (Bangor City). Bangor City, Wales, United Kingdom. 

2015 - Afrikaburn Art Grant: The Geographers. Tankwa, Karoo, South Africa.

2014 - National Arts Festival Main Program Grant: Homing. Makhanda, South Africa. 

2013 - Ithuba Arts Fund: Homing. Johannesburg, South Africa.

2024 - Dak'art Bienalle. The Wake. Dakar, Senegal. 

2020 - 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Represented by Sulger-Buel Gallery, New York, USA.

2023 - Layers, Rock Art Across Space and Time. Boschendal Wine Estate, Capetown.  Travelling exhibition curated by Sven Christianson. In collaboration with the Argentian, Chile, Colombia, Italia, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and South Africa embassies. 

2022 - Layers, Rock Art Across Space and Time. Nirox Foundation. Travelling exhibition curated by Sven Christianson. In collaboration with the Argentian, Chile, Colombia, Italia, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and South Africa embassies. 

2020 - A Land I Name Yesterday, Klein Karoo National Arts Festival, South Africa. 

2019 - A Land I Name Yesterday. With Jaco van Schalkwyk and Wayne Matthews. Barnard Gallery, Capetown, South Africa. 

2019 - Listening Room. Curated by Nkule Mabaso, Luvuy Equiano Nyqwose and Chloe Reid. Michaelis Gallery, Capetown, South Africa. 

2018 - Sweep Landskip: curated by Roberto Eckholm. Kino Kindo, Sandness, Norway.  

2018 - EVE. With Sonja Braas, Renee Cox, Guerrilla Girls, Mekhala Bahl and Anthony Gormley. Amar Gallery, London, UK. 

2017 - Songsmith (Yorkshire Sculpture Park). Ephemeral installation, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom. 

2016 - A Place In Time: curated by Helen Pheby. Winter Sculpture Fair, Nirox Sculpture Park, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. 

2016 - Songsmith (Bangor City). Soundlands, Bangor City, Wales, United Kingdom. 

2015 - Altered Realities: curated by Johan Conradie. Association of Arts, Pretoria, South Africa. 

2015 - The Geographers. Afrika Burn, Tankwa, Karoo, South Africa 

2014 - Make It New: curated by Rayda Becker, Jos Thorne, Jane Solomon and Isabel Schneider. World Design Capital Exhibition, Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa.

2013 – Stay: curated by Lavendhri Arumugam. Ithuba Arts Gallery, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa. 

2013 - Digi Re-Engineering: curated by K vd Walt, J de Rooster, J Lebeko and B Mknonza. UNISA art gallery, Pretoria, South Africa.

2012 - Terra Firma: curated by Elfriede Dreyer. Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa.

2012 - A.R.T: curated by Carol Brown. Travelling group show: Smithsonian, Washington DC; Michealis Galleries, Capetown, South Africa; Museum Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa; KZNSA art Gallery, Durban, South Africa.

2012 - The Hanging Gardens: curated by Paul Bayliss. KKNK arts festival, Outdshoorn, South Africa.

2011 - Designs of Nature: curated by Elfriede Dreyer. Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa. With; Rina Strutzer, Frikkie Ekstein and Christian Hattingh.

2010 - Bodies in Transition: curated by Elfriede Dreyer. Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa.

2010 - Dystopia: curated by Elfriede Dreyer and Jacob Lebeko. Travelling group show: Oliewenhuis Museum, Bloemfontein (2010); Museum Africa, Johannesburg (2009); UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria (2009).

2009 - The Point will be Defeated. Platform on 18th Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa.

2009 - Addict Lab 09. Design Square, Johannesburg, South Africa.

2008 - Fabrication: curated by Audrey Anderson. Magpie Gallery, Centurion, South Africa.

2008 - Bewilderness. With Retha Furguson. Magpie Gallery, Centurion, South Africa.

2007 - i spy: in completion of Fine Arts Degree (Hons). SACTE building, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.

2024 - New rock artwork at SU’s Tygerberg Campus a symbol of diversity and change, article by Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. 

2024 - Stellies diversity set in stone with new art installation, article by Weekend Argust Newspaper. 

2024 - SU UNVEILS NEW VISUAL REDRESS ART INSTALLATION, video by Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. 

2022 - FMHS considers Clinical Building rock ‘anew’ as part of the visual redress process, article in Stellenbosch University newspaper. 

2022 - US ‘hersien’ klip met Afrikaanse vers om ‘meer inklusief’ te wees, article by Ané van Zyl in Netwerk 24 newspaper. 

2020 - Taming Tech, Podcast Interview with Jenna Burchell. 

2020 - BBC Radio 4, Sounding The Cape, Interview with Paul Hamlyn. 

2020 - Pandemic Stories, Jenna Burchell. Interview with Photographer Bernard Brand.

2017 - Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

2016 - Nirox Sculpture Park, Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, South Africa.

2015 - Soundlands, Bangor City, Wales, United Kingdom.  

2014 - National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa.

2012 - Arteles Residency, Hämeenkyrö, Finland.

2022 - Artist Talk; Designing for Memory. Virtual Art Talk for Pretoria Institute of Architecture.

2021 - Guest Lecture; Every Artwork is a Story. Virtual Lecture for Open Window School of Visual Communication, South Africa. 

2020 - Panel Discussion, Modes of Collaboration and Exchange, KKNK Virtual Art Talk. 

2020 - Panel Discussion, Our Responsibility for and Place in the Natural World, KKNK Virtual Art Talk. 

2019 - Artist Talk, Songsmith and the Living Will of Technological Art. Creativate Festival, National Arts Festival, Mkandla, South Africa. 

2017 - Panel Discussion, Programme for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD), Vrystaat Kunstefees, Bloemfontein, South Africa. 

2016 - Artist Talk, Nirox, Winter Sculpture Fair, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa.

2022 - Strange Cargo Essays on Art, by Ashraf Jamal. Edited by Sven Christian. Essay title; Aural Braille page 155 - 165. 

2022 - Embodiment and the Arts: Views from South Africa. Edited by Jenni Lauwrens.  Essay title; The Art of Touch in Remote Online Environments. Page 73 - 94.

2020 - Re-Turning the Land: Soil and Cultivating Connection In Contemporary Art in Southern Africa. Author Virginia MacKenny. 

2016 - Switching a Paintbrush for a Motherboard, Article by Jenna Burchell. 

2011 - An Investigation into Psycho-geographic liminality in Selected Contemporary South African Artworks. University of Pretoria. Author Fourie, M.S.

2009 - 2010 - Spier Curatorial Internship Programme, Johannesburg. 

2007 - Interactive Art Software Programming, Wits University Digital Arts. 

2004 - 2007 - Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons), University of Pretoria.