Lentswe la letlapa (voice of the stone)
Coffee-stained paper collage
60,5 cm x 75,5 cm
Artist’s Statement
Emerging from the broader body of work: Mosekaphofu ya gaabo ga a swe lentswe (One who fights for what is theirs never loses their voice). Lentswe la letlapa explores the fragile relationship between land, belonging, memory and human dignity. Rooted in an intimate encounter with displacement and the uncertainty of having a place to call home, the work extends beyond personal experience to reflect on wider histories of land dispossession, exclusion and the enduring human search for belonging.
The landscape functions simultaneously as contested terrain, psychological refuge and spiritual space. Created through coffee-stained and heat-transformed paper, the mountain formations emerge through processes of pressure, erosion and transformation. Coffee invokes histories of labour, extraction and colonial exploitation, while the heat process echoes experiences of endurance, survival and the marks left by struggle. The forms are discovered through transformation rather than completely controlled, allowing hidden presences to reveal themselves.
Within the mountain ranges, human faces and figures appear embedded in stone, suggesting that the voices of those displaced have become inseparable from land itself. Some figures remain partially concealed, while others stand visibly, existing between vulnerability and resilience, silence and revelation. The mountain becomes both witness and archive– carrying spiritual memory, collective histories and voices that refuse disappearance.
Through the merging of human and geological forms, Lentswe la letlapa proposes that even when physical belonging is disrupted, identity, dignity and memory endure. The stone becomes a voice; a reminder that what has been silenced can still emerge, speak and reclaim its presence.
