OF ELANDS AND GIRAFFES AND HELICOPTERS AND TEA CUPS….. AND THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE KALAHARI

OF ELANDS AND GIRAFFES AND HELICOPTERS AND TEA CUPS…. AND THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE KALAHARI

KURU ART PROJECT

Exhibition Booklet

Publisher: Kuru Art Project

Dimentions: 19.5(H) x 19.5(W)

This was an exhibition booklet for the Kuru Art exhibition titled: Of Elands and Giraffes and Helicopters and Tea Cups….. and the First Peoples of the Kalahari held at the Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery from the 12th of November to the 3rd of December 2018.

The exhibition told the story of a vanishing culture as remebered and imagined by the San of the Kalahari of Botswana. It further tells about their struggle to adapt to a new lifestyle and their quest for identity. It lead the audience to identify themselves with the San of the past and to an appreciation of their existance and identity today, where contemporary things like te cups, bicycles, mobile phones, radios and even helicopters became part of their daily life.

In the San culture, for thousand of years, the eland has been a symbol of fullness, strengthe and vitality, as can also be seen in the many rock art paintings in the Drakensburg and elsewhare in Southern Africa. The eland and the fat it contains gives strength and as such represents life in abundance. For the Kuru artists the longing for their past traditions became evident in the depictions of eland, giraffe and many other animals and plants that were important to them in the pastand still is valuable to them for the future.