00:01Every dot she punches carries a memory.
00:03Every string she threads holds a story.
00:06But before the world knew her name,
00:08what did Benola Kavula see in Shwe Shwe that no one else did?
00:15I like art that is abstract, minimal and conceptual.
00:19When you look at it,
00:20one would think that you're seeing like a coded language,
00:23a coded visual language.
00:24It resonates with people because it is familiar.
00:27It holds the memory of our ancestors,
00:30the memory of our mothers and our grandmothers.
00:32There's a lot of messaging,
00:33but it's coded in past, present and future.
00:37Benola's geometric language began as a rebellion.
00:40As a student at Michaelis,
00:42she pushed against old and new stereotypes,
00:45and that fight shaped the technique she's known for now.
00:49If you look at art during apartheid,
00:53you'll find that while black male artists were making prints,
00:58you'll find that most of the time,
01:00women were taught weaving and craft, you know.
01:05In post-apartheid South Africa,
01:07new stereotypes emerged.
01:09Let's say 12 years ago or so,
01:11the black artist superstars,
01:12a lot of their work touched on identity politics and our history.
01:17And I was inspired by that.
01:20But I also, in a way, thought that one can make art that is liberating
01:25and not necessarily touching on, you know, those identifiers.
01:30And I also understood that also not making art that is political
01:35is a political statement.
01:37Using printmaking as her point of departure,
01:39Benola set about developing her own technique.
01:42My peers were studying medicine, accounting,
01:46and so I decided to approach my art as a creative science.
01:50I did a lot of experimenting.
01:52When I did my investigation with paper,
01:54I looked at the office punch, the stapler,
01:56and so I got this visual language with the confetti
02:00that you get when you open the office punch.
02:02So the circle and the line became like a constant in my work.
02:06So how did Shoe Shoe become more than just a familiar fabric for Benola?
02:11For the first six, seven years after I graduated,
02:14I worked only with paper and canvas.
02:16So those are the materials that I would punch and deconstruct and reconstruct.
02:21And then came the moment that changed everything.
02:25I was invited to have my first solo exhibition.
02:29And while I was busy making my work, it felt like a very flat process
02:34because the material that I was using had no meaning.
02:37So I was really searching again like I did when I was a student investigating all sorts of material.
02:43Until one day, you know, I saw my mother's red Shoe Shoe dress sticking out of my cupboard
02:49and I thought, oh, that is actually an interesting material.
02:52I punched the fabric, put the Shoe Shoe dress together and it was like magic.
02:58It felt like I literally hit the jackpot.
03:01The work carried all that meaning that I was searching all this time.
03:07Culture, history, ancestor, memory, identity, even politics.
03:13All in this one fabric that is specific to South Africa, but specific to my own personal history.
03:21A single fabric holding heritage, tradition and the loss of her mother at the age of five.
03:27So in my culture, when somebody passes away after the funeral, we lay their clothes out and the family members
03:34get to choose a piece of clothing.
03:36And when my mother passed away, obviously I was too young to participate in that.
03:41And my great grandmother chose my mother's red Shoe Shoe dress.
03:46And when I started Varsity in 2011, she called me aside and said,
03:51listen, I want you to have this dress.
03:54Apart from her giving me something that belonged to my mom, I also feel like she gave me my idea
03:59long before I even knew it.
04:01And that's why I call my work ancestral work.
04:05Bonono's distinctive use of Shoe Shoe is celebrated and sought after by galleries, museums and art fairs locally and abroad.
04:13And all that exposure presented a new opportunity.
04:17So I've been invited to participate in a group exhibition, the Town Hall in London.
04:22The name of the show is Her Stories Untold.
04:25I'm busy basically sketching out what I will be showing there.
04:31Next step is to choose the fabric which I think will be best for this artwork.
04:37Shoe Shoe's long journey to Africa means a lot to Bonono.
04:40A textile reinvented many times, now part of her own artistic evolution.
04:44So when people think about Shoe Shoe fabric, they're thinking brown, blue, red, because traditionally those were the colours.
04:57But now there's a variety, so the colours have expanded, the designs have expanded over the years.
05:07Traditionally worn for ceremonies and celebrations, Shoe Shoe has travelled far.
05:12From Asian origins to European blau-drake printmakers, to colonial trade and a get full of suitors king for Shoe
05:18Shoe.
05:19To white women wearing it as a quiet resistance against apartheid.
05:25Every pattern carries traces of migration, colonialisation and reclamation, a history Bonono now weaves into her work.
05:35When you grow up and learn about art, it's paintings, it's your traditional sculptures, but all European.
05:43And for me to go overseas and to take my Shoe Shoe work into those spaces, it's like the perfect
05:49intervention for writing yourself in history, within art.
05:57Or even correcting some narratives.
05:59For me to show you what I would like to say and be very close.
06:02Penono's voice, and Shoe Shoe now speaks for itself, as a deeply personal honouring of her ancestors and Botswana heritage.
06:10And a demonstration of African Art setting the record straight.
