(6 minutes) Selected by Friends of Iziko South African National Gallery

Lerato Shadi’s work challenges common assumptions to critique Western
notions of history and make visible that which is invisible or overlooked.
In particular, she critiques the assumption that Western history is world
history. In the video, the artist’s hand makes enigmatic gestures and she
sings a folk verse in a South African language. But she provides no subtitles
or guidance on what the words and gestures mean because she is narrating
the un-narratable, the history of her people, marginalised during apartheid
South Africa. The history she was taught at school is the history of the colo-
niser, which she rejects, so what history can she tell?