Sandro Trapani – Hanneke

Artist: Sandro Trapani

Title: Hanneke (Grace and Favour)

Medium: Limited Edition Bronze Sculpture

Size: 66 cm x 60 cm x 22 cm

Status: Available

Artist Statement:

“Think like a mountain.” – Arne Naess

Naess reminds us that humanity is inseparable from the biosphere and responsible for the well-being of all living things. To live well requires a relationship of equality with the environment.

Hanneke is embedded in the landscape, beneath open skies, rolling hills, trees, and water. She wears roots as a crown, not of conquest but of care and preservation. At once rooted and unrooted, she extends her hand in a gesture of giving and receiving, becoming a conduit between humanity and nature. Water flows from her palms back to the earth, symbolising reciprocity. She shelters, invites reflection, and opens a space for us to encounter our “ecological self.”

She embodies both humanity and nature, calling us to return to an ancestral respect for the earth. In Khoi San tradition, gratitude for the earth’s provisions was expressed after each hunt, a reminder of reverence and responsibility.

As Rachel Carson observed in Silent Spring (1962), “in nature, nothing exists alone.” Balance is not fixed but fluid, demanding that humanity adapt as other species do, rather than reshape the world only for our own gain.

The skeletal roots, sourced from Brahman Hills, bear their own history. Though non-indigenous, they have belonged to the landscape for a generation. Now they find rest in Hanneke, completing the cycle of return