Embracing and celebrating unique South African, especially indigenous, identities and cultures are partly what Africa Month is all about.
As part of celebrating Africa Month this month !Khwa ttu, on the R27 just outside Yzerfontein, opened and launched the Kuru Art Exhibition on Wednesday 1 May.
Magdalena Lukas, museum curator at !Khwa ttu, explained it had a few ideas for temporary exhibitions, and having the Kuru Art Exhibition was one of them. “When we got the Mzansi Gold funding for Africa Month and 30 years of democracy it was the golden opportunity to involve the Kuru Art Project to celebrate Africa Month.”
As explained the The Kuru Art Project was initiated in 1990 by the then Kuru Development Trust as part of their cultural initiative. Through the years the Kuru Art Project has supported the marginalised San of especially the D’Kar community to improve their lives and promote, preserve and strengthen their cultural values through art.
Currently the project supports 20 San artists. Among them are Naro and Dcui San, who have lived in and around D’kar since the early 1960s.
The launch had about 45 guests experiencing the beautiful art and was a huge success. Guests were entertained with not only art, but traditional dance and a fun rock painting activity. Guests had the opportunity to place their rocks anywhere on the beautiful outlined sketch of Africa. “At !Khwa ttu we become friends and family and it’s always good to see how people connect and come together at !Khwa ttu, and I think we achieved that. The exposure to the Kuru Art Project is of course the highlight.”
Lukas added it was a privilege for them to have the San people of Botswana here as this was the first time they travelled so long, witnessed the ocean and visited the Cape. “It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.”
