Storytelling art of the Kalahari Desert Bushmen of Botswana by Ankie van de Camp

Preface

The culture of the San, also known as the ‘Bushmen’, is embedded in dances, songs, stories and engraved ostrich eggshells and was passed orally during thousands of years. Therefore the San are often depicted as the ‘first artists, first storytellers and first custodians of the natural world’. This book provides a different perspective on the art of the San people in Botswana. Not the artist’s indigenous or native roots or context, but the creativity of the artist and the artistic value of the art pieces as such are primary focus of this book. 

The 20 storytelling artworks, linoleum cut prints and oil on canvas in this book have been produced by contemporary San artists within the context of the Kuru San Project and are now part of the San art collection of the Tamai foundation. The book presents ‘traditional’, ‘new traditional’  and  ‘modern’ artworks, each with a short  biography of the artist and a personal impression of the  touch, the purpose and the meaning of the artwork. Most of the art-pieces in this book have been made in the context of and with the support of the Kuru Art Project. As described in the book, this project is part of the Kuru Family of Organisations (KFO), a network of 8  non-governmental organizations working with San and other marginalized groups in Botswana and South Africa. Kuru means “we do it ourselves!” and  the Kuru project wants to  underline for both the San themselves as for the outside world that the  San are proud of their heritage and that San creativity is worthwhile. 

This book takes the aims of the Kuru art project as a point of departure for setting a subsequent step on the path of emancipation of  non-Western artists, in particular the San artists. It does so by emphasizing the intrinsic value of the storytelling art-pieces,  by rejecting the direct  relation between rock art and contemporary San art, and by linking modern San art to contemporary African poets like Antjie Krog and Stephen Watson. An artistic rather that anthropological approach to art of non-Western artists does not only challenge and emancipate the artists concerned, but also constitutes a challenge for existing perceptions and policies concerning art, especially in the Netherlands, where non-Western art still can only be exhibited in the context of ethnological museums or specific art-galleries. In many respects this book represents a welcome step in a new direction!

Anna Meijknecht, Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples (NCIV)