Lerato Shadi

My performance piece “Mosako wa nako” loosely translates to a “River of time”. It is the product of sixty hours of labor, which I carry out publicly over ten days. Three times so far, in Berlin at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, in Grahamstown during the South African National Arts Festival and at the 14th Curitiba Biennial in Brazil last year. One of the themes in the performance is the observing and understanding of time as a constant motion forward. Hence, the red carpet scroll becomes an allegory of time and stands for the time that I referred to in the title “Mosako wa nako”. The stitches become the representation of past moments, drops that contains the lived universe of emotions and thoughts.

During these challenging times my mantra is, that life always moves forward. I think my mental health-strategy is similar to the one I use when I am performing “Mosako wa nako”. And that is, to keep focusing on love. When ever I notice that my mind is wandering off to some dark caves I bring it back to love. That is as simple as taking the time to really consciously enjoy my cup of coffee in the morning, and avoid all news especially the current ones for as long as possible in the morning. I keep thinking of Maya Angelou’s words: “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope”. And I think that notions, or meditations on love and hope are the engine to my artistic expression in this current span of time.