Deadheading was the first solo exhibition in China by South African artist Simon Gush. Working as both an artist and a sociological researcher, Gush brought a sensitive eye to the structures of labour and social relations concealed beneath the apparent order of everyday life.
Presented at Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre from 15 August to 15 September 2026, the exhibition featured photography, installation and video, extending Gush's ongoing exploration of labour systems and labour migration.
The exhibition quietly speaks to a changing world of work. Surveillance technologies, automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping how people work, while deepening the uncertainty and precarity faced by workers. At the same time, historical and contemporary systems of labour migration continue to shape political and social relations around the world.
The exhibition centres on The Busiest Air Route in Africa (2021), an installation that traces the little-known history of Wenela Air Services. Established in 1952, the company transported migrant workers across borders to work in South African mines. On 4 April 1974, a Wenela Air Services DC-4 crashed shortly after taking off from Francistown, Botswana. Ground staff had mistakenly loaded kerosene into a tank intended for aviation gasoline, contaminating the fuel and causing the engines to fail. The crash killed 78 people, most of them Malawian mine workers returning home. Beyond the immediate tragedy, the disaster exposed the political and economic relations underpinning labour migration in southern Africa and prompted Malawi to reconsider the arrangements.
Two other works explore labour migration in different contexts. Workers Leaving the Factory(2014) documents workers leaving a Chinese-owned textile factory in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The newly commissioned work Deadheading (2026) is a moving-image essay created specifically for this exhibition. Filmed during Gush’s journey from South Africa to China, it observes the structures of labour that emerge in the intervals between flights and during airport transfers. Throughout the exhibition, a series of images depicts airports, hotel rooms, departure lounges and other spaces often described as “non-places”.Seemingly empty and ordinary, these spaces hold the pauses, rhythms and quiet intervals of labour.
In September 2026, we had the pleasure of speaking with the exhibition’s curator, Megan Mace, and artist Simon Gush to learn more about the stories behind the exhibition.
Presented at Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre from 15 August to 15 September 2026, the exhibition featured photography, installation and video, extending Gush's ongoing exploration of labour systems and labour migration.
The exhibition quietly speaks to a changing world of work. Surveillance technologies, automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping how people work, while deepening the uncertainty and precarity faced by workers. At the same time, historical and contemporary systems of labour migration continue to shape political and social relations around the world.
The exhibition centres on The Busiest Air Route in Africa (2021), an installation that traces the little-known history of Wenela Air Services. Established in 1952, the company transported migrant workers across borders to work in South African mines. On 4 April 1974, a Wenela Air Services DC-4 crashed shortly after taking off from Francistown, Botswana. Ground staff had mistakenly loaded kerosene into a tank intended for aviation gasoline, contaminating the fuel and causing the engines to fail. The crash killed 78 people, most of them Malawian mine workers returning home. Beyond the immediate tragedy, the disaster exposed the political and economic relations underpinning labour migration in southern Africa and prompted Malawi to reconsider the arrangements.
Two other works explore labour migration in different contexts. Workers Leaving the Factory(2014) documents workers leaving a Chinese-owned textile factory in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The newly commissioned work Deadheading (2026) is a moving-image essay created specifically for this exhibition. Filmed during Gush’s journey from South Africa to China, it observes the structures of labour that emerge in the intervals between flights and during airport transfers. Throughout the exhibition, a series of images depicts airports, hotel rooms, departure lounges and other spaces often described as “non-places”.Seemingly empty and ordinary, these spaces hold the pauses, rhythms and quiet intervals of labour.
In September 2026, we had the pleasure of speaking with the exhibition’s curator, Megan Mace, and artist Simon Gush to learn more about the stories behind the exhibition.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lancy Liu is a Taiwanese sensory designer and the founder of Food Fetish, an immersive creative practice operating between food, installation, and experiential design. Based in London, her work explores the relationship between sensory perception, emotional response, and human interaction through edible installations, performative dining experiences, and multi-sensory environments.
Through sculptural presentation, spatial storytelling, scent, sound, and texture, Liu creates immersive experiences that blur the boundaries between ritual, vulnerability, and sensory awareness. Using food as both material and narrative medium, her practice investigates themes of desire, collective participation, and sensory memory, while challenging conventional perspectives on food and human connection.
Lancy Liu is a Taiwanese sensory designer and the founder of Food Fetish, an immersive creative practice operating between food, installation, and experiential design. Based in London, her work explores the relationship between sensory perception, emotional response, and human interaction through edible installations, performative dining experiences, and multi-sensory environments.
Through sculptural presentation, spatial storytelling, scent, sound, and texture, Liu creates immersive experiences that blur the boundaries between ritual, vulnerability, and sensory awareness. Using food as both material and narrative medium, her practice investigates themes of desire, collective participation, and sensory memory, while challenging conventional perspectives on food and human connection.
Installation view of Deadheading, (2026). Artworks courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam. Exhibition documentation courtesy of Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre.
A lot of your work seems to revolve around the theme of labour — from labour migration, factories and strikes, to the ways AI and automation are changing work today. What is it about labour that has interested you so deeply?
I have been working on the theme of labour and work for about 15 years now, and my interest has evolved over this time and this is what kept me returning.I always have new questions, and I never feel like I understand enough. I want to know more. I started with more historical questions about the history of the labour movement in South Africa, in order to understand the role of the unions now. This led me towards questions about work itself.
Work is so central to how we understand ourselves and our value. What we do so often defines us. It is the primary form by which income is distributed and how we survive. Yet this role of work in society is not natural; it is historically constructed and, in South Africa, a colonial import. It is gendered and racialised.
Work, in this narrow definition, should not define us and does not need to be the only way we survive. In South Africa, where we have the highest unemployment rate in the world and where many people will never have work, asking questions about the role of work, I feel, is important and urgent.
“Deadheading” is a very interesting word. What made you land on this word for both the exhibition title and the new film?
I first used the idea of deadheading in an artwork about work in 2008, when the subjects of work and labour were not central to my art. So I think it had been floating around in my head for a while. How I think about work is often about the limits and borders of how we define it and, importantly, what this excludes.
Deadheading is work, but it is also not work, or is not seen as work. As the show evolved to revolve around air travel and migration, it became a way to bring together these two ideas: flights and the work that is not always seen as work. For me, the work of migration is not only the job that the migrant travels to do, but also the work that is often invisible and unrecognised, training and caring for families that are left behind. Like deadheading, is work but not (formally acknowledged as) work.
I have been working on the theme of labour and work for about 15 years now, and my interest has evolved over this time and this is what kept me returning.I always have new questions, and I never feel like I understand enough. I want to know more. I started with more historical questions about the history of the labour movement in South Africa, in order to understand the role of the unions now. This led me towards questions about work itself.
Work is so central to how we understand ourselves and our value. What we do so often defines us. It is the primary form by which income is distributed and how we survive. Yet this role of work in society is not natural; it is historically constructed and, in South Africa, a colonial import. It is gendered and racialised.
Work, in this narrow definition, should not define us and does not need to be the only way we survive. In South Africa, where we have the highest unemployment rate in the world and where many people will never have work, asking questions about the role of work, I feel, is important and urgent.
“Deadheading” is a very interesting word. What made you land on this word for both the exhibition title and the new film?
I first used the idea of deadheading in an artwork about work in 2008, when the subjects of work and labour were not central to my art. So I think it had been floating around in my head for a while. How I think about work is often about the limits and borders of how we define it and, importantly, what this excludes.
Deadheading is work, but it is also not work, or is not seen as work. As the show evolved to revolve around air travel and migration, it became a way to bring together these two ideas: flights and the work that is not always seen as work. For me, the work of migration is not only the job that the migrant travels to do, but also the work that is often invisible and unrecognised, training and caring for families that are left behind. Like deadheading, is work but not (formally acknowledged as) work.
Wenela Air Services and African Labour / All photographs courtesy of the Jay Sherlock Collection.
(Historical background: Wenela Air Services was an airline established in 1952 as part of South Africa’s mining labour recruitment system. It primarily transported workers from countries such as Malawi and Mozambique to mining areas in South Africa. On 4 April 1974, a DC-4 aircraft carrying 84 people and travelling from Francistown, Botswana, to Blantyre, Malawi, crashed shortly after take-off due to contaminated fuel, killing 78 people. Beyond the tragedy itself, the crash revealed the scale of cross-border labour migration at the time and its far-reaching impact on the social, economic and political relations of southern Africa.)
The Wenela Air Services story and the 1974 crash are so little known. How did you first come across this history, and what was it like discovering it?
Wenela, now called TEBA, is the agency that recruits workers from Southern Africa for the mines. Most people who know about mining and work in South Africa know about Wenela. But we most commonly associate it with the trains that brought workers to mines around Johannesburg (there is a lot of good work and research about this aspect). So when I was researching about Wenela and migration from Mozambique, I was really surprised by a small mention of the airline in a book by Ruth First. I had never heard of the airline or the crash.
Ruth First was an anti-apartheid activist and journalist who was living in exile in Mozambique. She was killed by a bomb sent by the Apartheid state. Her work in Mozambique was around breaking the dependence of Mozambique on migration to the South African mines. A system that was a product of the dire economy as a result of Portuguese colonial rule. Although she did not go into detail, what she said in the book was that, due to the crash and the withdrawal of Malawian workers from South Africa, Mozambique had largely filled the vacant positions and that had increased dependence on South Africa and hampered the efforts of the new Mozambican government break this system of migration. So, already in that small comment, there was the suggestion that this crash and the deaths of workers were not just a tragedy but also revealed something bigger about the system of migration and work in Southern Africa.
What I had to do was follow that suggestion and find out more about not only Wenela Air Services and the crash,but what the consequences were beyond the event. Going into the history of the airline, the accounts of how it was run and what it did were shocking, yet there is so little record of this. I got a lot of information from a small self-published book written by one of the pilots that celebrated Wenela Air Services’ history and its achievements.Researching the ripple effects of the crash, I was surprised by how little was documented, but I did find mentions here and there in different books. I put this together over a number of years, doing a little bit of research here and there, but I never knew what to do with this story. Eventually, during the COVID lockdowns, when I could not carry on with my other research, I went back to it and started to think about how to tell this story, with all its details and implications. I felt that looking at it as a whole, rather than focusing on one aspect, allowed me to understand more about the system of migrant labour and its persistence than just focusing only on the crash.
Sculptures of miners, Francistown, Botswana, 2016
Hand-printed silver gelatin print
Image size: 10.5 x 16cm
Wenela Camp, Francistown, Botswana I, 2016
Hand-printed silver gelatin print
Image size: 10.5 x 16cm
Hand-printed silver gelatin print
Image size: 10.5 x 16cm
When you were shooting at the abandoned compound in Francistown, did you actually come across anything physically tied to the crash or the miners' lives? Was there anything specific you genuinely didn't expect to find there?
The site was empty, just buildings falling apart, overgrown with plants, and, around the corner, a graveyard for the pilots. Nothing else.
But those spaces hold something of their history, even if it is not material or visible. You can feel it. When you go into the rooms where the workers were quarantined, there is a presence there. It’s hard to describe, but there is a weight that follows you afterwards and takes a while to leave, and I can still feel a little of it when I see the images.
The site was empty, just buildings falling apart, overgrown with plants, and, around the corner, a graveyard for the pilots. Nothing else.
But those spaces hold something of their history, even if it is not material or visible. You can feel it. When you go into the rooms where the workers were quarantined, there is a presence there. It’s hard to describe, but there is a weight that follows you afterwards and takes a while to leave, and I can still feel a little of it when I see the images.
Film still, Deadheading, (2026), courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam
Film still, Deadheading, (2026),courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam
Film still, Deadheading, (2026),courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam
The new film was shot en route from South Africa to China. What was that journey actually like, and was there a moment you didn't plan for that ended up shaping the film?
I am a big fan of Lefebvre’s idea of rhythmanalysis. I am oversimplifying it, but it is about looking at the rhythms of a space to see what they reveal about the structures of the systems behind it. So, in a sense, I had a strategy I could use and had used before. All I had to do was spend enough time in a space, and something would emerge, or at least I hoped.
So, on the way back, I had made sure I had a super long layover to be at Bole Airport, but when I arrived, I was really tired, jet-lagged and struggling to film, photograph or think. So I sat, staring out the window onto the runway. I was watching without thinking as the airplanes arrived and left, and as the workers loaded and unloaded the luggage, preparing the planes. Most airports that are home bases for big airlines, that service a lot of destinations beyond that country, work on systems where a lot of there is a period of time where planes arrive, passengers are diverted to new planes, and then a period of departures. It is not a constant even mix of arrivals and departures. It is not a constant, even mix of arrivals and departures. As I was there for so long and had turned down the airline’s offer of a hotel room to rest for a few hours, I found myself in the space between departures and the next set of arrivals.
It was around midday, the airport was very empty, and I needed the bathroom. I went from bathroom to bathroom across the whole airport, and every single one was completely closed for cleaningA team had come out over the course of an hour to prepare the airport for the next batch of passengers. This was the time when all that hidden work of maintaining the airport as a 24-hour space took place. The reason the airline wanted me to go to a hotel was that they didn’t really want me to be there during this time. It is when the work that is supposed to be invisible becomes visible.
Airports, like so many spaces, hide their labour for our comfort. That is when I realised that I wanted to make the film about the mostly invisible labour of migration. We see the edges of it, in the airport, in the form of workers preparing planes, for example, or the occasional cleaner, but we don’t often see the scale of it. This became a way to think about the other work of migration, such as the work of caring for families at home, which is also often invisible.
I am a big fan of Lefebvre’s idea of rhythmanalysis. I am oversimplifying it, but it is about looking at the rhythms of a space to see what they reveal about the structures of the systems behind it. So, in a sense, I had a strategy I could use and had used before. All I had to do was spend enough time in a space, and something would emerge, or at least I hoped.
So, on the way back, I had made sure I had a super long layover to be at Bole Airport, but when I arrived, I was really tired, jet-lagged and struggling to film, photograph or think. So I sat, staring out the window onto the runway. I was watching without thinking as the airplanes arrived and left, and as the workers loaded and unloaded the luggage, preparing the planes. Most airports that are home bases for big airlines, that service a lot of destinations beyond that country, work on systems where a lot of there is a period of time where planes arrive, passengers are diverted to new planes, and then a period of departures. It is not a constant even mix of arrivals and departures. It is not a constant, even mix of arrivals and departures. As I was there for so long and had turned down the airline’s offer of a hotel room to rest for a few hours, I found myself in the space between departures and the next set of arrivals.
It was around midday, the airport was very empty, and I needed the bathroom. I went from bathroom to bathroom across the whole airport, and every single one was completely closed for cleaningA team had come out over the course of an hour to prepare the airport for the next batch of passengers. This was the time when all that hidden work of maintaining the airport as a 24-hour space took place. The reason the airline wanted me to go to a hotel was that they didn’t really want me to be there during this time. It is when the work that is supposed to be invisible becomes visible.
Airports, like so many spaces, hide their labour for our comfort. That is when I realised that I wanted to make the film about the mostly invisible labour of migration. We see the edges of it, in the airport, in the form of workers preparing planes, for example, or the occasional cleaner, but we don’t often see the scale of it. This became a way to think about the other work of migration, such as the work of caring for families at home, which is also often invisible.
Film still, Deadheading, (2026),courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam
You chose to photograph airports, hotel rooms, departure lounges — places where “nothing seems to be happening” — rather than shooting wreckage or objects tied directly to the victims. Was that the plan from the start, or did directly photographing “evidence” end up feeling less powerful, which pushed you toward these ordinary spaces instead?
I tend not to photograph or film the thing itself in my work. It’s for a confluence of reasons.
In the case of the plane crash, I found archival images of the crash itself, but I didn’t want to sensationalise it in that way. I find those images too disturbing and too violent. But I do think something else happens when you turn the camera away and photograph around the thing without looking directly at it. Most of the work about work doesn’t show work. During Apartheid, the government put up statues and monuments of workers. Johannesburg is filled with images of workers, not just white workers but black workers as well. I think it was about celebrating work because work, and the control of work and workers, were so central to apartheid.
So when I was thinking about how to talk about work, I realised that I needed a different way to represent it. I started with the physical structures and spaces of work because I wanted to talk about the system of work, not just the conditions of work. I wanted to address the ideology around work.This I think is where I start thinking images that capture something without capturing the thing itself.
This exhibition also deals specifically with the relationships between people, capital, and production between Southern Africa and China. Do you see any shared experiences of labour between South Africa and China? And for you, what does it mean to bring this long-term research into labour into a Chinese context?
What I tried to do in the exhibition was to point to the fact that work in Southern Africa is entangled with China, through BRICS, through infrastructure projects, through migration, and in many more ways. But I also wanted to be careful not to try to comment on work in China, as I don’t feel I understand it enough to say anything about it yet. The little I could speak to was only my experience of thinking about making art in that context from my own position.
My work always begins from South Africa because it is what I know best. Yet I think understanding a little about China might be increasingly important for me understand what is happening in South Africa. This is the same reason I felt that engaging with Mozambique and Lesotho was important, because understanding work in South Africa would be incomplete without.
Travelling to China was really fascinating, partially because, despite the massive role China plays in the global economy and in politics, I think most of us actually know very little about the reality of the place. My curiosity is still probably too general, as I am still trying to wrap my head around what is also a huge place with many subtleties and differences.
I tend not to photograph or film the thing itself in my work. It’s for a confluence of reasons.
In the case of the plane crash, I found archival images of the crash itself, but I didn’t want to sensationalise it in that way. I find those images too disturbing and too violent. But I do think something else happens when you turn the camera away and photograph around the thing without looking directly at it. Most of the work about work doesn’t show work. During Apartheid, the government put up statues and monuments of workers. Johannesburg is filled with images of workers, not just white workers but black workers as well. I think it was about celebrating work because work, and the control of work and workers, were so central to apartheid.
So when I was thinking about how to talk about work, I realised that I needed a different way to represent it. I started with the physical structures and spaces of work because I wanted to talk about the system of work, not just the conditions of work. I wanted to address the ideology around work.This I think is where I start thinking images that capture something without capturing the thing itself.
This exhibition also deals specifically with the relationships between people, capital, and production between Southern Africa and China. Do you see any shared experiences of labour between South Africa and China? And for you, what does it mean to bring this long-term research into labour into a Chinese context?
What I tried to do in the exhibition was to point to the fact that work in Southern Africa is entangled with China, through BRICS, through infrastructure projects, through migration, and in many more ways. But I also wanted to be careful not to try to comment on work in China, as I don’t feel I understand it enough to say anything about it yet. The little I could speak to was only my experience of thinking about making art in that context from my own position.
My work always begins from South Africa because it is what I know best. Yet I think understanding a little about China might be increasingly important for me understand what is happening in South Africa. This is the same reason I felt that engaging with Mozambique and Lesotho was important, because understanding work in South Africa would be incomplete without.
Travelling to China was really fascinating, partially because, despite the massive role China plays in the global economy and in politics, I think most of us actually know very little about the reality of the place. My curiosity is still probably too general, as I am still trying to wrap my head around what is also a huge place with many subtleties and differences.
Film still, The Busiest Airline in Africa, (2021), courtesy of the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Amsterdam
We look forward to connecting with artists, writers, organisations and to shaping Green Grammar together.
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