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Serwala Botlhoko

@serwala_studio

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📸Photographed by @mo.homotsi
💄Make-up by @thutomoon by @serwala_studio

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a month ago

HAD A LIL CHAT WITH @serwala_studio ABOUT #VOL2 AND HOW HARD TIMES REQUIRE FURIOUS DANCING! by @serwala_studio

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3 months ago

’The fragile gestures we cling on to’,
2026
Oil, graphite and acrylic on canvas
50,8 x 60,9cm by @serwala_studio

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9 months ago

‘Qubu ya dithwele’ (2025) - ‘Qubu ya dithwele’ (which translates to ‘A pile of junk’ in Sesotho) is a documentary photography series exploring the day-to-day experiences of waste reclaimers within Johannesburg. Much of the city’s efforts at reuse and recycling of materials often categorised as waste are reclaimed by a community of waste reclaimers. The community of waste reclaimers within Johannesburg are often from low–income areas or migrant workers who relocate away from their families in Lesotho (South Africa’s closest neighbouring country), Waste reclaimers contribute greatly to South Africa’s recycling efforts, and according to Linzner and Lange, 2013), there are about 200,00 of them within the country. In spite of efforts by community organisers and the government to formalise their work, only about 8000 waste reclaimers are formally registered. I’m interested in unraveling the implications of how the lack of integration of these workers into the work force plays out within urban areas in South Africa. I’m also interested in the ethical aspect of this exploration, so maintaining the anonymity of every individual within this series is important to me.

Source: Linzner, R.; Lange, U. Role and size of informal sector in waste management—A review. Waste Resour. Manag.
2013, 166, 69–83. by @serwala_studio

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a year ago

Serwala Botlhoko
‘BURDEN OF PROOF’, 2024
Resin, mixed media
12 x 33 x 18cm

This sculptural work is inherently personal to me and memorialises the complexities of someone very near and dear to me - my father. Made from resin, Marlboro red beyond cigarette butts collected over the 18 months and a Salomon XA pro trail sneaker which belonged to my father.

Nothing in this world can ever prepare you to experience the loss of a parent. The narrative of this work is inherently personal to me as it speaks to my relationship with my father and the wake of what I was left with following his passing from cancer in 2022.

In making this work I was interested in recontexualising and reflecting upon the Black family heirloom, what that means both personally and collectively.

In thinking about the framing of this work, I was thinking about how an heirloom does not only encompass relics but also includes generational curses.

In many African cultures, more particularly Setswana culture, the heirloom extends beyond monetary inheritance and selecting a dearly departed’s clothing items to include in one’s own personal wardrobe is a significant part of mourning them.

At the time leading up to and following his passing I was reading ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. What struck me most about the main premise of the book is how it explains how trauma tends to physically entangle the most primal aspects of someone’s brain into in a constant state of fight flight or freeze. Leading them to actively relive a traumatic event, both sensorially and somatically even long after it has passed. This reliving of a haunting event leads the individual in question to, numb the brain and body’s recalling of the event, through the use of substances.

I’ve generally been averse to smoking cigarettes for a large part of my life due to my profound awareness of how addiction is a historical generational curse in my family. Life can tend to play a cosmic joke of sorts. As time passed and our relationship became increasingly fragmented and murky, I (un)wittingly built some sort of sensorial and somatic connection to him, through smoking cigarettes. by @serwala_studio

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a year ago

Had to re-introduce myself, just in case you weren’t familiar…the name is SERWALA🙂‍↕️ by @serwala_studio

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a year ago