Akiko Nakaji
Akiko is an artist and graphic designer now based in
Durban, South Africa. Growing up in Japan she was trained in classical
calligraphy. She studied oil painting in Osaka and figure painting at Cleveland
Institute of Art, U.S. After completing graphic design studies in
California she worked as a graphic designer at Tamotsu Yagi Design in San
Francisco and Two Fish Design / Gallery A.D. in San Jose. As a fine
artist she has worked with silkscreen printing in London. Akiko’s arts
are now based on the points of intersection between classic oil painting,
modern graphic design and Japanese calligraphy. Her work has been
exhibited in the US, UK and South Africa.
THE ARTWORK
The artwork “Why?” reminds us of the theme of the exhibition which is
taken from the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” where he questions
the fact that humans never learn from the past and continue to repeat the same
mistakes. The question “Why?” ttherefore
opens the discourse of the exhibition.
Why?, 2013
Embossed print
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Mining and Marikana
The events at Marikana on 16 August
2012 will be written into the history of South Africa. A strike at a Lonmin owned platinum mine in
the Marikana area close to Rustenburg led to a series of violent confrontations
between police, mine security officials, trade union leaders and miners in
which around 47 miners were killed and an unknown number injured.
Many of the works on this exhibition
comment on this event which was the curatorial impulse to use the theme of “Blowin’
in the Wind” as the overall exhibition title.
It cannot be seen as an isolated event outside the history of mining in
South Africa. Mineral wealth has always
provided the country’s riches whilst the labour which toiled on the mines has
been exploited.
Still from Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old, 1991
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
William Kentridge
William Kentridge lives in Johannesburg.
He is an internationally acclaimed draftsman, printmaker, and theatre
director. In 1976 after studying
politics and African studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Jhb, he began
coursework in painting and drawing at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. Studied
mime and theatre in Paris in the 1980s and in that decade started what would
become a group of animated films called 9
Drawings for Projection (1989-2003).
These films (of which 3 are shown in this exhibition) are based on
charcoal drawings. They addressed the
social and political landscape during apartheid through metaphor and narrative.
Some 25 years later the issues of capitalism, labour, exploitation are
still prevalent in South Africa.
THE ARTWORK
Sobriety, Obesity
and Growing Old, 1991
Film, 35mm, shown as video, projection, colour and sound (mono)
Duration: 8 min 22 sec
Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old forms part of the Nine Soho Eckstein Films
by William Kentridge. These chronicle the battle between Soho Eckstein
(property developer extraordinaire) and Felix Teitlebaum (whose anxiety flooded
half the house) for the hearts and mines of Johannesburg. The characters and
some of the interactions came directly from two dreams. What there is of a
narrative was evolved backwards and forwards from the first key images – the
procession through the wasteland, the fish in the hand. In Sobriety,
Obesity and Growing Old, we witness a showdown in the Soho Eckstein, Mrs
Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum trio. Soho’s empire collapses, buildings implode,
the crowds march over the horizon. In the face of a storm-racked policy, Soho
longs for a calm domestic haven.
Still from Johannesburg, 2nd
Greatest City after Paris, 1989
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
THE ARTWORK
Johannesburg, 2nd
Greatest City after Paris, 1989
Film, 35mm, shown as video, projection, colour and sound (mono)
Duration: 8 min
Johannesburg the Second Greatest City
after Paris is the first in this series, and was
made from twenty-five drawings. The sound-track includes music by Duke
Ellington. It introduces the viewer to the characters central to most of
Kentridge's subsequent films in the series. Soho Eckstein is a prosperous Johannesburg
property developer, equally indifferent to the well-being of his workers and
the emotional needs of his wife. He is portrayed frontally, wearing a pinstripe
suit, sitting behind his desk where he guzzles food and drink, or stares
bleakly at the destroyed terrain of the mining landscape. In contrast Felix
Teitelbaum, Soho's alter-ego, appears nude, seen from behind, gazing into the
landscape. His water-soaked, sexual fantasies of Mrs Eckstein contrast
powerfully with the aridity of Soho's business, and with the faceless crowds of
African miners who advance and retreat on the edges of Soho's world. The title
of this film is ironic: the wasteland it depicts, in the land and in the
emotional relationship between Soho and his wife, is the result of the growth
of Soho's power, crudely analogous both to colonialism and to capitalism. Made
just at the time when international pressure on South Africa to abolish
apartheid had reached its greatest intensity, the film is a reminder that
western societies were once built on similarly inhumane principles. Kentridge's
multiple layers of complicity and responsibility allow for no simple
readings. (Tate Gallery website)
THE ARTWORK
Mine, 1991
Film, 35mm, shown as video, projection, black and white, and
sound (mono)
Duration: 5 min, 50 sec
A journey into the mines provides a visual
representation of a journey into the conscience of Kentridge's invented
character, Soho Eckstein, the white South African property owner who exploits
the resources of land and black human labour which are under his domain.
Throughout the film the imagery shifts between the geological landscape
underground inhabited by innumerable black miners and Soho's world of white
luxury above ground. When Soho, breakfasting in bed, pushes down the plunger of
his cafetière, its movement is transformed into a rapid descent through the
tray, through the bed and into the mine-shaft. Here the miners' world of
overwhelming misery is depicted in claustrophobic tunnels where they are
trapped digging, drilling and sleeping, embedded in rock. Above ground, Soho
sits at his desk in his customary pin-stripe suit and punches adding machines
and cash registers, creating a flow of gold bars, exhausted miners, blasted
landscapes and blocks of uniform housing. At the end of the film a tiny, live
rhinoceros is carried up from underground to appear on Soho's desk. This, like
the image of a Nigerian Ife head,
which appears at the beginning of the film, alludes to exoticising colonialist
attitudes towards Africa and its people, which reduce human and animal
resources to trinkets and symbols of wealth. It also refers to the ecological
damage caused by industry, a theme common to this series of films. (Tate Gallery website)
Jeannette
Unite
Jeannette Unite’s
practice has, for nearly two decades, been centred on a visual interrogation of
mining’s rich and contentious heritage.
Unite lived on
Africa’s West Coast alluvial diamond mining prospects in the 1990s with her
then fiancé; an earth-scientist who ran the mineral resources. Living alongside
rich mineral deposits and the peculiar machines and apparatus that excavate the
subterranean soil strata presented an entirely new way of looking at the earth.
Unite connected the titanium in her paint box to the diamondiferous titanium
deposited on these beaches. Struck by the artist being end user of mining
produce, Jeannette Unite began collecting mined material directly as evidence
of economic cycles of extraction, consumption and waste. Her core practice
emphasizes all human’s complicity in our compulsive drive for metal
harvesting.
Unite has since visited hundreds of prospects in 25 countries for the industrial mine detritus, metal oxides, mine ore, slags, residues and other site specific matter. These metal elements are organised in ‘periodic tables’ then incorporated into pastels and paint, drawing attention to the paradoxes inherent in mining and the industrial sublime.
In 2010 Jeannette Unite was one of four South African Artists to participate in the Beijing Biennale and she has previous participated in the Tashkent Biennale in Uzbeistan as well as a Triennale in Lyon, France. Unite has sold work to significant collections on 5 continents from Clifford Chance (largest international law firm’s Brussels offices) to Anglo America’s Kumba Iron Ore HQ. She has presented her work in Madrid at the Universidad Autonoma, Spain, at Innsbruck, Austria, in Kumasi, Ghana as well as Rhodes University and many African academic institutions. Unite has won numerous academic and research awards the first which was the Kellogg’s Foundation first prize that covered all undergraduate studies for four years, recently she was awarded five scholarships and grants towards her Masters in Fine Arts completed in 2014 from the Centre for Creating the Archive and the University of Cape Town. In 2009 a travel grant from Art Moves Africa (AMA) made an empirical research trip across African Industrial and mining sites possible.
Unite has since visited hundreds of prospects in 25 countries for the industrial mine detritus, metal oxides, mine ore, slags, residues and other site specific matter. These metal elements are organised in ‘periodic tables’ then incorporated into pastels and paint, drawing attention to the paradoxes inherent in mining and the industrial sublime.
In 2010 Jeannette Unite was one of four South African Artists to participate in the Beijing Biennale and she has previous participated in the Tashkent Biennale in Uzbeistan as well as a Triennale in Lyon, France. Unite has sold work to significant collections on 5 continents from Clifford Chance (largest international law firm’s Brussels offices) to Anglo America’s Kumba Iron Ore HQ. She has presented her work in Madrid at the Universidad Autonoma, Spain, at Innsbruck, Austria, in Kumasi, Ghana as well as Rhodes University and many African academic institutions. Unite has won numerous academic and research awards the first which was the Kellogg’s Foundation first prize that covered all undergraduate studies for four years, recently she was awarded five scholarships and grants towards her Masters in Fine Arts completed in 2014 from the Centre for Creating the Archive and the University of Cape Town. In 2009 a travel grant from Art Moves Africa (AMA) made an empirical research trip across African Industrial and mining sites possible.
Jeannette Unite
Law & Ore: Smelter
Mine
detritus, pyrites, gold mine dust, road paint, glass beads, Karoo sand,
Kalahari sand, iron fines from Sishen in the Northern Cape, titanium dioxide,
calcium, lead chromate, iron oxide, graphite, copper shavings, copper
phosphate, Titanium and platinum slag in a polymer acrylic emulsion on 16
wooden panels. Polyptych.
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Jeanette
Unite
The
Martyrs of Marikana
The medium used in these obelisk
like forms commemorating the dead miners at Marikana consists of :
Glass from underground miners helmet
found in Welkom. Yellow lead chromate which is part of the platinum group of
minerals is used to spell out the miners who lost their lives. Various mineral
mine detritus, pyrites, gold mine dust, soil from the Bloemfontein
concentration camp, iron and manganese oxides, titanium dioxide, calcium, iron
oxide, graphite, pigment and platinum lustres, platinum slag and platinum fines
from tailings dumps in a polymer acrylic emulsion on wooden panels.
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Mary Wafer
Mary Wafer was born
and grew up in Durban. After three years of study at the University of Natal,
Pietermaritzburg, she relocated to Johannesburg and completed her advanced
diploma in fine art at Wits University. Wafer’s father Jeremy Wafer is a
practicing South African artist which most certainly contributed to Wafer’s
choice to pursue a career in the arts. She travelled to London and Copenhagen
where she worked as a gallery administrator and artist. By 2005, Wafer had
returned to South Africa to embark on her Masters of Art in Fine Art.
She currently works
at David Krut publishers in Johannesburg.
THE ARTWORK
The
paintings are partially abstracted landscapes derived from media images and my
own visits to the site where the massacre happened.These works are an attempt,
within the possibilities of painting, to find a way of responding to, and reflecting
on, these events and the place in which they occurred. The event clearly has
deep, indeed tragic, political, social and human consequences and
significances. My attempt has been to find a way of inscribing and articulating
something of my own response to these through paintings drawing on the
particularities of the environment; the harsh light, the broken and dislocated
tracts of wasted land, the detritus or discarded remains of an extractive
exploitation of both nature and humanity.” Mary Wafer
Mary Wafer
Crowd 1
Oil painting on
stretched canvas
Crowd 11
Oil Painting on
stretched canvas
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Bongani Khanyile
Bongani Khanyile
was born in Greytown in 1990 and lives and work between Johannesburg, Durban
and China. He completed his postgraduate Degree in Fine Art at Durban
University of Technology, Durban in 2014. He was awarded a Merit Award from
SASOL New Signatures competition for 2014 and his work has been exhibited in
numerous exhibitions nationally and abroad. He
was an Emma Smith Art Scholarship nominee for 2013. Khanyile has participated
in significant public commissions and projects including KPMG Art project 2013
and Kang Jianfei woodcut project of 2014. His works in public collections
include SASOL, Confucius Institute, KPMG and numerous private collections.
Known for his ceramics helmets installation, Khanyile’s body of work consists
of various mediums including drawing, ceramics-sculpture, painting and linocut.
His work investigates socioeconomic divisions of South African society. His latest upcoming project titled Tears of the Nation further examines the current South African
status quo.
THE ARTWORK
The work is a depiction of a frontal portion of a gun barrel. The idea
of manipulating a gun in an unfamiliar but readable appeal is a response to the
ignorance of the issue of gun killing in our society. I have decided to always
switch off my radio when the news constantly reports gun killing incidences.
The small ceramics also depict gun shapes. This is a direct response to the
Markana incident in 2012 .The title Potholes
alludes to the fact that the issue of gun killing is still a pothole in our
beautiful multi-cultural society. I believe if we could embrace our diversity
there is a lot we can learn and this country will be better if we fill up such
potholes.
Bongani Khanyile
Nasty partition,
2013
Concrete, steel, raku, wire, plastic and nails
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Bongani Khanyile
Potholes, 2014
Glazed and smoke fired raku on board
Shown at KZNSA
Mthobisi Maphumulo
Mthobisi Maphumulo was born in 1988 September 9 at iMfume (South
Coast KZN). "When I was at school I wanted to study Art but I was
encouraged to study Electrical Engineering. I dropped out after 2 years to
pursue my passion for Art. My work is inspired by the freedom of human
figures in spaces we inhabit. I use diferent mediums such as wood cut, oil
pastel and Mono prints.The fragility of oil pastel and the looseness
of Mono prints reminds of the same quality we found in our environment.
THE ARTWORK
My work
challenges the ideological portrayal of the mine as a symbol of progress,
prosperity and wealth while it has become the symbol of the struggle for environmental
justice and exploitation in the salaries of mine workers. The Marikana mine
workers were not agressive to kill but they were demanding a dialog with their
employers to get better salaries for their family as people who play a big role
in boosting our economy. The Police killed them as criminals in the same way as
the apartheid police did when facing Sharpeville and the 1976 Soweto uprising
where many innocent people were killed.
The use of umbrellas in the painting works as an irony showing how harmless they were but they were killed as full armed criminals while they were merely demanding a negotiation to get better salaries for their family.
The use of umbrellas in the painting works as an irony showing how harmless they were but they were killed as full armed criminals while they were merely demanding a negotiation to get better salaries for their family.
Mthobisi
Maphumulo
Voices at Marikana,
2014
Oil pastel on paper
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Fran
Saunders
Fran Saunders studied
Fine Art at Stellenbosch and UNISA and has an honours philosophy degree from
UKZN. She has exhibited in groups and solo in South Africa, the Czech Republic,
Germany, and Zimbabwe. Her collages rely heavily on chance encounters, and her
mandalas are inspired by the discipline of Tibetan thangkas and the colour
palette of Yves Klein. Her mixed media paintings and other work stem from an
enduring interest in extraordinary changes forged in the human psyche through
discipline, and sometimes pain.
She does not present her work in a single discourse but
prefers to leave it open to multiple possible interpretations.
THE ARTWORK
In the Marikana tragedy men lost their lives. Some were in their
twenties. They left behind mothers, widows, and lovers whose lives will never
be the same again.
Threnody is a song of
lamentation for the women
Fran Saunders
Threnody for the women
of Marikana, 2015
Woven crochet and steel
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Lerato Shadi
Lerato Shadi lives and works in Berlin (Germany) and Johannesburg (SA).
She completed a BFA in Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg.
in 2009 she was included in the “The Generational: ‘Younger Than Jesus Artists
Directory’ published by the New Museum, New York. In 2010 she was awarded a Pro
Helvetia residency in Bern, Switzerland.
From 2010 to 2012 she was a member of the Bag Factory artist studios in
Fordsburg, Johannesburg. In 2012 her work was featuredat the Dak’art Biennale
in Dakar, Senegal and the III Moscow International Biennale. She is a fellow of
Sommerakademie 2013 (Zentrum Paul Klee) and completed in the same year a
residency program by invitation of INIVA at Hospitalfield (supported by ROSL).
In 2014 she was awarded the Mart Stam studio grant. Currently she is doing her
MFA at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee (GER).
THE ARTWORK
Mmitlwa is a performance shot for video. The viewer is confronted by a
female figure perched on top of a plinth.
The protagonist begins to wrap her left hand, using masking tape
retrieved beside her. A single-minded incessant rhythmic flow of twisting
movements peruses in a desperate race to bind, confine and imprison the
entirety of the body – using her hand as an own agency.
The trapped figure pauses. There is a train of agony before beginning
the drive to reverse, what the right hand has done in a frantic struggle along
with its disruptive sound of tape being ripped of the assaulted skin.
Lerato Shadi
Mmitlwa, 2010
Digital video projection, colour, sound
Duration: 25 min 21 sec
Edition 2/5
On Loan from UNISA Art Gallery
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Andrea Walters
Born in
Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, she has lived in several South African cities.
She has run a design studio, worked as a model, freelance copywriter, events
co-ordinator and art director.
She
received a merit award from Unisa for her 2012 installation on domestic
violence and has participated in the following exhibitions:
July 2014 Sculptural Fibre Art Exhibition, IQC Africa.
Emperors Palace, Johannesburg.
Curated by Dana Biddle and Celia de Villiers
November 2013 UNISA Fourth Year Exhibition artSPACE Durban.
February 2013 Selected 3rd level Visual Arts and Multimedia students UNISA Art Gallery Exhibition, Pretoria
November 2013 UNISA Fourth Year Exhibition artSPACE Durban.
February 2013 Selected 3rd level Visual Arts and Multimedia students UNISA Art Gallery Exhibition, Pretoria
THE ARTWORK
“I have
always been interested in the aberrant aspects of human nature.
Abject of
Desire (2013) was
precipitated by the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp. This body of work explores the public
adulation experienced by professional athletes, the accountability of the media
and corporate sponsors. Laser-cut stainless steel medallions allude to
sponsors, guns and social media.
SAPS
Ballistics in Amanzimtoti introduced me to Kevlar, the material used to
manufacture bullet-proof vests.
Steenkamp’s last Instagram post, “I woke up in a happy safe home this
morning. Not everyone did” has been embroidered on 43 Kevlar squares, cocooned in
defragmented Kevlar threads.”
Andrea Walters
Installation Title
: Abject of Desire
Artworks:
Not everyone, 2013
Kevlar fabric and thread
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Andrea Walters
Part Man Part God
Mild steel NFS
Andrea Walters
Trophy 3
Mild steel NFS
Andrea Walters
My Body is my weapon
Mild steel
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Images of Human
Rights Prints Portfolio
Portfolio of 29
black and white relief prints
Printed on Fabriano
Edition: 50
The
"Images of Human
Rights" portfolio
which consists of 29 fine art prints, was created by artists representing the
nine provinces of South Africa and hand printed by master printmaker Jan
Jordaan in Durban.
The
portfolio was launched at the Durban Art Gallery by Judge Albie Sachs of the
Constitutional Court on International Human Rights Day !0th
December 1996.
Volunteers
drawn from human rights-related organizations such as "Artists for Human
Rights", Amnesty International (S.A.) and The Black Sash, as well as the
Durban Art Gallery and the Fine Arts Department of the Technikon Natal worked
together to produce this historic portfolio and market it both nationally and
internationally,
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Wonder Mbambo
I grew up in Kwangcolosi village in KZN, by Inanda dam I liked to play with mud in the river, making cows with clay. I didn’t know this could grow into a career until a woman who employed my mom as a domestic worker saw my drawings and recognized my talent saying “Your son will be an artist”. This always stuck with me and when I finished school I came to town and explored the field of art. I now have a studio in the Bat Centre where I mentor other artists. My work has been featured in several group shows in Durban and in 20/20 : A Clearer Vision at the Unisa Gallery in 2014 and a travelling exhibiton “Blowing in the Wind”
I am inspired by things I see hear and feel. I am not confined within a particular context and explore the figure and how the body can portray a host of emotions,
I am particularly interested in portraying the male body because I relate most to it.
Recently I got a chance to participate in a three-week residency in Bremen, Germany through the cultural exchange program of the International Sister Cities of the Ethekwini Municipality. I will be taking up a residency in China in 2015.
THE ARTWORK
The Good Ship Jesus is the
common name given to the ship Jesus of
Lubeck which sailed from England in 1564 to collect black people from
Africa to sell as slaves to the US. The
leader of the expedition was the Christian pastor, John Hawkins who partnered
with Queen Elizabeth 1.
Wonder Mbambo
Jesus “Good” Sheep,
2014
Charcoal and soft pastel on paper
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
Siobhan O’Reagain
Siobhan O’Reagain is a mature artist who held her first exhibition in 2014 at the KZNSA. This exhibition was for the final year of the MTech Degree through the Durban University of Technology.
Prior to her current teaching career she was a freelaance journalist and was Bureau Chief for Fair Lady magazine and has also worked as a copywriter and is author of two children’s books Business Whizz Kid and The Write Stuff commissioned by M-Net
Crossed lines, 2015
Installation - Historic Mining Telephone c. 1920’s and
Archive documents
Crossed Lines poses the concept of communication and miscommunication.
Siobhan O’Reagain
Whispering Winds of
Change, 2015
Porcelain bone china and perspex
THE ARTWORK
This work indicates metamorphosis and
the transition of seasons.
Leaves Blowing in the Wind
is reflective of the circular metamorphosis of mankind, of life cycles,
re-birth, migration and of new ideas bourne on the breeze
of hope holding aloft the concepts of each new
generation.
It is the eternally outwardly unspiralling nature of
humanity, gluttonous for power beyond the happiness of what we already
have; that circular quest that renders each generation no different to the one
that came before, as if to echo
the self-fulfilling Orwellian prophecy of things staying the same the
more they change.
This transience and fragility of life is
demonstrated in the use of porcelain and bone china, themselves delicate and
translucent. This work postulates these leaves as a metaphor of our
lives, representative of our present, yet intrinsically linked to our
past. Ideas are born like embryonic leaves which curl foetal like
and then unfurl, to glide softly into the vortex of life, thrust into life’s
quintessential being in the circular whirlwinds of time.
Shown at KZNSA and a different version of this will be shown at UFS
Derrick
Nxumalo
As an artist
Nxumalo is self-trained and to reach the desired end-product he has adopted an
adventurous and determined approach to his technique and subject matter. He has
developed a unique style using his imagination and experience and has come up
with work of intricate and intriguing quality. His work is based on acute
observation, often omitting the physical human presence. It is nevertheless a
testimony to an extensive human existence and interaction with the environment.
The omission of the human presence often presents a surreal effect, with fine
architectural details deployed with an absorbing understanding of perspective
and colour in its purest form.
Derrick
Nxumalo
Derrick Nxumalo
Dreaming of the
perfect city
Acrylic on canvas paper
130 x 1300 cms
Shown at KZNSA
Vulindlela
Philani Elliott Nyoni
Vulindlela Nyoni was born in Chilimanzi, Zimbabwe in
1976 and attained a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of KwaZulu-Natal
in 2006. His Masters thesis was entitled “Representations of ‘other’ in
selected South African artworks: Re-membering the black male body”.
Prior to moving to Stellenbosch, Nyoni was the
Academic Coordinator of the Centre for Visual Art, University of KwaZulu-Natal
(Pietermaritzburg). Apart from being a practicing artist, Nyoni also lectures
in Printmaking and Drawing at the University of Stellenbosch. His main
interests lie in the politics of representation and self-representation as
exploration of personal narrative through print media. He continues to make his
own work at any opportunity he has.
THE ARTWORK
" Conceptually
I have always been fascinated by human behavior and personal narrative. These
pieces arose out of this fascination but more so with my preoccupation with the
‘group mentality/individual thought’ dialectic. I have chosen the metaphor of a
Murmuration to speak directly to the notion of flocking mentality and Icarus as
a metaphor for the individual who has chosen to go out on a limb. Agency within
these situations and negotiations of agency are key to myself understanding the
nature of human interpersonal relationships. Of course this dialectic extends
to processes of identity formation, cultural identifiers, history and
history-making as an individual pursuit and not so much wholly dependent on the
group."
Vuli Nyoni
Murmuration, 2014
Linocut on
cotton, three colour layers,
handcut Lino birds, individually inked
9 panels each
300 x 100 cms
Edition: 1/3
Vuli Nyoni
Icarus, 2014
Three colour
Serigraph/Screenprint on cotton
400 x 150 cms
Shown at KZNSA
Paul Botes
THE ARTWORK
“The dead fly to
Diputaneng. Or sometimes they ride, strapped across horses. For the living,
it’s a three-hour drive out of Maseru and past Semonkong on increasingly steep
and treacherous roads before parking at the scattered hamlet’s local school and
completing the last two and a half hours on foot or horseback.
The
footpaths wind along the mountains’ ravines as the oxygen thins to a
breathtaking nothing with every step higher into the remoteness.
Molefi
Ntsoele’s coffin was flown to his homestead in the area in September 2012 –
weeks after the miner had been shot and killed at Marikana.
Ntsoele’s
final journey is tragically ironic for, as his wife Matsepang says, “he’d
worked hard and always dreamt of flying somewhere to go on a holiday… but that
never happened… (Niren Tolsi)”
2 Archive
Photographs of Molefe and Matsepang Ntsoele 1991
Molefe and Matsepang met at school at Marikana and married. Molefe worked all his life in the mine where
he was killed in the Massacre.
Paul Botes
Matsepang Ntsoele
Photographic print
This image was taken by Paul Botes after Molefe’s
death. The 3 photographs tell a poignant
story of life cut short
Copyright Paul Botes.
Shown at KZNSA and UFS
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