Mašwi A Ditoro Tsa Rona (2022)
“Botswana Pavilion: Maš(w)i a Ditoro (tsa Rona), a group show featuring works by LegakwanaLeo Makgekgenene, Kim Karabo Makin, Thebe Phetogo, Thero Makepe and Sade Shoaloane. In the group’s fourth iteration, the independent collective from Botswana have partnered with Sakhile&Me to present a show parallel to the 59th Venice Biennale. Maš(w)i a Ditoro (tsa Rona), which opens on the 25th of April 2022, brings together a richness of medium and material ranging from video, painting, sound and installation, photography and photomontage.
Taking its cue from this year’s theme for the Venice Biennale, Maš(w)i a Ditoro (tsa Rona) translates specifically to, ‘the Milk of our Dreams’. Where the theme is said to suggest life as constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination, the Setswana translation presents a Botswana satellite that positions and presents the transnational workings of creatives from Botswana in Frankfurt, Germany — in The Botswana Pavilion’s first iteration in Europe. The translation; ‘The Milk of Our Dreams’ brings into question what it means to share a collective idea or vision, as proposed by the Venice Biennale. Where ‘The Milk of Dreams’ exhibition as curated by Cecilia Alemani in Venice cites a re-envisioning of the imagination- a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else- The Botswana Pavilion does so and brings into question notions of collectivity, nationhood, subjectivity, and the politics of belonging (elsewhere).
The satellite exhibition prompts one to contemplate the perceptions around and, perhaps, our sentiments towards nationality and nationhood. This, in the interest of creating transnational connections, whilst unpacking their ‘creative identity’ as a network of artists and art practitioners working both within and outside of Botswana. Participation at the Venice Biennale is an upper-crust endeavour where a selection of artists are chosen to represent their country at their respective pavilions in Venice and present their works. Botswana has never presented a national pavilion in Venice, prompting this group of emerging contemporary artists and makers from Botswana to take it upon themselves to actively interrogate Botswana’s creative identity, collectively, and across national and international borders, engaging counter-narratives and debates around the nationalistic nature of occasions such as biennales.
In relation to the title of the exhibition — Maš(w)i a Ditoro (tsa Rona), the idea of national pavilions at the Venice Biennale and the nationalities represented thereof, Botswana occupies a non-existent space at the Biennale. The satellite exhibition in Frankfurt interrogates this vacuous space, and is not necessarily a replacement to that lack of participation but rather exists in the gap and absence of an ‘official’ state sanctioned participation in a divergent manner. Part of the programming sees a number of virtual aspects that tie back to Botswana, bringing the exhibition full circle, to, in many ways the place of its genesis.”
