Emerging South African artist, Lesego Seoketsa is a multi-talented artist! She’s making headlines not because of her painting or fashion design skills, but because her work speaks to her roots.
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00:00Why, for this young designer, is fashion not possible without art?
00:09And what does her work have to do with freedom, feminism and identity?
00:14We're in this new world, freedom, democracy, but our bodies are still remembering things
00:22that happened like just two generations ago, it's not even ten, like you're literally
00:28your grandmother who's still alive.
00:29They lived through this and we carry their DNA in us and their trauma, even their strength
00:34and resilience.
00:36So I think just navigating that in modern times as an African, there's a lot to work
00:43with.
00:44Multi-talented 29-year-old Lise Jose Oketza started her creative journey as a visual artist.
00:51But we'll get back to her art later.
00:53First, let's explore her recent and very first clothing collection that aims to create
00:58a dialogue between past and present while celebrating the rich narratives of her lineage.
01:05So my latest capsule collection is called Gwapikoli.
01:09So my mom is from a small town called Perdi in the Eastern Cape, and she lives in like
01:15a section called Gwapikoli.
01:17So every time I go there, I don't know, I feel a sense of belonging because in a sense,
01:23that's where I come from.
01:24My mom tells me that all her great-grandfathers, they were buried there.
01:28So I feel like it's a site of information for me, like where I come from.
01:34And more importantly, I want to pay homage to my mother's side and to recognize her people.
01:40So me titling this collection Gwapikoli is me acknowledging her role in who I am.
01:50Nseho's Gwapikoli collection draws inspiration from the natural surroundings of her maternal home.
01:57How did she translate this onto the garments?
02:01It's very dry, very rocky, there's mountains and everything.
02:06It has these brown earthy colors that remind me of the desert vibe.
02:11Also like the sunsets, you know, even the silhouettes, I cut out asymmetric forms because
02:18I don't believe, I don't think symmetry is the ideal of beauty, personally.
02:26I think harmony, you know, things can be asymmetrical, but if they balance each other out, I think
02:32there's so much beauty in that kind of imperfection.
02:36So I took inspiration from the landscape and implemented it on the fabric.
02:41So I used traditional Xhosa fabric, Mpago, and then I dyed it, hand dyed it.
02:47Leseho has even spiced up fashion icons like Adidas sneakers with hand-dyed laces.
02:53She uses traditional craftsmanship to find creative and sustainable alternatives in design
02:58and art.
03:00So my work is centered around figuring out how to deconstruct her identity in order to
03:05reconstruct it.
03:09For Leseho the artist, why is it important for her to reconstruct her identity and how
03:14does she do this?
03:17I look at themes of religion, being a girl growing in religion, especially like Christianity
03:25and the beauty and the pain of Christianity.
03:29One of the paintings that I'm working on right now is part of an ongoing series called Amakletu.
03:34And Amakletu is a Zulu word meaning earrings.
03:38So when I was a child, I wasn't allowed to wear earrings or wear makeup or just to like
03:43be a girl in that sense.
03:46I wasn't allowed, I think, because of the religion at that time, you know, in my family.
03:51But, you know, as I've grown up, I realized how much I wanted to do that.
03:56And I think this is the time for me to express that through this series that I'm working on.
04:02It's so fun because I always put these like exaggerated earrings on these figures and
04:08I always make their hair red, you know, it's kind of like I make it so expressive and not
04:14necessarily like a normal like black hair or woman.
04:19I always make it very fun, like just to feel that feeling that I didn't feel as a child.
04:25Yeah. And being a black girl who grew up in the township and then you go to a private
04:29school, then you just switching those identities because sometimes you go back home, you go
04:35to your grandmother in the township and the way you relate to the people there compared
04:40to how you relate to the people when you go to your private school, it's like it's two
04:45contrasting worlds and it creates different personalities from yourself.
04:50And I try to understand that and how to separate and protect myself from the performative self,
05:00you know.
05:02This personal view of the lives of black women in post-apartheid everyday life makes Lisege's
05:07work unique.
05:08But how did she get into art in the first place?
05:10Whilst I was in fashion school, I think that's where my love for art developed because there
05:15was like a module called Fashion Theory where we looked at images and broke them down and
05:21we found meaning.
05:22I think for me, that's what art is, it's like creating meaning out of images, out of your
05:28life.
05:29And so from that module, I started creating visuals, I started sketching, I started doing
05:34photography.
05:35And I think that's where art started, like my love for art developed from there.
05:40I guess it started from fashion.
05:42I think fashion feeds art and art feeds fashion.
05:46I don't think the two can exist without each other and that's how I moved between the two.
05:51Sometimes I feel more called to be a designer and other times I feel more drawn to be an
05:56artist.
05:57So there's a fluidity between the two mediums because I believe they speak to each other.
06:03As a designer and artist, Lee Se-ho has found her very own visual language that makes her
06:08stand out.