As Botswana turns 60 and Ukraine marks 35 years of restored independence, 10 creatives use art to explore what it means to endure, rebuild and remain unbroken.
GOSEGO MOTSUMI
History can be heavy. Art has a way of making it move.
As Botswana celebrates 60 years of independence and Ukraine marks 35 years since restoring its independence, the two nations are meeting in an unexpected place: the gallery. On August 31, Thapong Visual Arts Centre in Gaborone will host 10 Botswana-based creatives as they respond to Ukraine’s story of endurance through photography, sculpture, visual art and fashion.
Titled Resilience: The Unbreakable Human Spirit, the multidisciplinary exhibition is curated by Thabo Kgatlwane and presented by the Embassy of Ukraine in Botswana in partnership with TSW. Rather than simply illustrating the realities of war, the exhibition examines what remains when people are forced to confront hardship.
WHEN ART ANSWERS HISTORY
Three visual artists — Wilson Ngoni, Totang Motoloki and Ronald Kegomoditswe — join photographers Sentle Baitse, Boi Seitshiro and Tsaone Lawrence Bahiti, sculptors and craft artists Akanyang Ntshingane and Iranian national Shirin Ettihad, and fashion designers Mboko Basiami of Glotto and Moitshepi Mokaila of Desicive.
Together, they bring their own interpretations of identity, struggle, hope, perseverance and transformation.
The result is not a foreign story simply retold through a Botswana lens. Instead, it is a local artistic response to a universal question: how do people endure, rebuild and remain themselves when circumstances attempt to break them?
“Resilience is not simply about surviving hardship. It is about finding the strength to create, rebuild and continue,” says Kgatlwane.
That idea gives the exhibition its pulse. Survival may be the starting point, but creativity becomes the response.
TWO NATIONS, ONE HUMAN THREAD
For Ukrainian Ambassador to Botswana Dr Oleksiy Syvak, the exhibition connects Ukraine’s current reality with values that resonate beyond its borders.
“Resilience, for us, has never been an abstract idea. It has been a daily reality,” he says, describing the exhibition as a reflection of the shared human determination to protect freedom, dignity and the right to shape one’s future.
The exhibition will also give audiences a closer look at the artists’ perspectives, with QR codes supported by TSW providing access to their statements and creative visions.
The official opening will bring together artists, diplomats, government representatives, cultural stakeholders, collectors and art lovers, followed by a cocktail reception.
As Botswana looks back on six decades of nationhood, Resilience looks forward, asking a sharper question: after everything we survive, what do we choose to create?