Mplankara
Mixed media
70 cm x 63 cm x 64 cm
Artist’s Statement
My sculpture, Mplankara, is a celebration of the universal human impulse to create, adapt, and find joy in the face of limitation. At its heart lies the figure of a hybrid child — part human, part cow (my familial totem, kgomo) —riding a wooden go-kart crafted from resin, steel, rubber, and nylon rope. This work bridges personal memory and collective experience, exploring how play becomes a language of resilience across cultures.
Growing up in Alexandra, the Mplankara (our term for go-karts) was more than a toy — it was a testament to the ingenuity of children who transformed scrap materials into vehicles of freedom. We engineered them from discarded wood, bent steel, and frayed rope, each design a lesson in problem-solving and teamwork. The kart’s makeshift steering, controlled by the rider’s legs, and the reliance on others to push or position it on slopes, mirrored the interdependence of the community. This ritual of play, though rooted in my township childhood, echoes universal narratives: the cardboard-box spaceships of suburban garages, the tin-can telephones of rural villages, the repurposed objects that children everywhere turn into worlds of possibility.
The hybrid figure embodies the fluidity of identity in an increasingly interconnected world. Just as the Mplankara is assembled from disparate materials, so too are we shaped by the fusion of heritage and modernity, tradition, and innovation. The cow-human form speaks not only to my ancestral totem but also to the broader human experience of straddling multiple roles — caregiver and rebel, inheritor and inventor. The materials themselves tell this story: the roughness of reclaimed wood, the steel, the elasticity of rubber — all symbols of adaptation and endurance.
On a global scale, the sculpture resonates with themes of sustainability and creative reuse, as societies grapple with scarcity and waste. The Mplankara is a microcosm of this dialogue, where “making do” becomes an act of defiance and beauty. It invites viewers to reflect on their own childhood alchemies — the moments when imagination turned the ordinary into the extraordinary — and to recognise the shared ingenuity that binds us across geographies and generations.
Ultimately, the Mplankara sculpture is a tribute to the quiet revolutions of everyday life. It honours the universal spirit of play as a site of resilience, the hybrid identities we all navigate, and the transformative power of seeing potential where others see discard. Through this work, I ask: What might we build, together, if we approach the world with the fearless creativity of a child steering a wooden kart toward the horizon?
GALLERY
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