Title: Mother !Xoo
Location: Zutswa, Kgalagadi District, Botswana
Series: The Indigenous Project
1. Storytelling
On the outskirts of the vast Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, in the settlement of Zutswa, we meet the future of the !Xoo people. This work bears the title Mother !Xoo.
The image breaks abruptly with tourist expectations of skin clothing and bows. Here, we see a young mother wearing a hoodie, in the midst of breastfeeding her child. The baby, safely wrapped and wearing a yellow knit cap, looks up while the mother delivers a large, infectious smile that reveals an uncomplicated joy of life—even though her people’s reality is under pressure.
They are no longer allowed to hunt freely in the nearby national park. The traditional hunter-gatherer life has been replaced by quota systems in the KD2 area, where hunting rights are often sold to professional companies. But despite the loss of the ancient land, the identity remains intact. Mother !Xoo is an image of a woman navigating modern Botswana. The image’s intense contrast between the blood-red sky and the electric blue bottom underscores the tension between tradition and change. The visible QR codes in the image act as digital gateways to a reality far more complex than the romanticized image of “the Bushman.”
2. Catalog Text
The work Mother !Xoo is a contemporary mixed-media portrait of motherhood in a culture undergoing rapid change. The motif shows a young woman from the !Xoo tribe in Zutswa, Botswana, breastfeeding her child. Her Western hoodie and the child’s modern knit cap stand as visual markers of the modernization characterizing San communities today.
The artist has chosen an aggressive and dual color palette: A saturated, red top meeting a cool cyan/turquoise bottom. Across the motif, large, graphic QR codes and coarse brush script break the image surface. The Zutswa community lives in a complex field of tension; their ancestors’ right to free hunting has been revoked, and they are now dependent on state-allocated quotas (KD2). The title Mother !Xoo, painted directly on the canvas, insists on her specific ethnic affiliation, while the digital layers testify to a strong cultural confidence thriving amidst socioeconomic challenges.
3. Curatorial Evaluation
Analysis: With Mother !Xoo, the artist confronts the stereotypical depiction of the San people as static museum artifacts. The work documents a “living culture” in constant motion.
The curatorial focus is placed on the clash between the intimate (the breastfeeding, the smile) and the constructed (the graphic manipulation). The color choice is central to the work’s psychology: The electric cyan symbolizes the life-giving (milk and water), while the intense red color at the top adds a sense of alarm or intensity.
The inclusion of massive QR codes as an aesthetic part of the composition is a key device. They disrupt the classic portrait aesthetic and remind the viewer that the !Xoo people are part of a globalized, digital world. Although pressed on their traditional rights, the woman radiates vitality. The work is a tribute to the modern San woman’s ability to integrate new elements—from hoodies to digital technology—without losing the core of her identity.