ARTIST: NTHABELENG MOLAPO
COUNTRY: LESOTHO
MATERIALS USED: CHALK PASTELS
In this artwork, we see a seed with its roots on top of the ground and an ocean of water coming towards this seed.
The seed represents humanity, filled with potential and imagination but yet in a cacoon like a state, where the eyes and mind are free but yet silenced to protect themselves from a force that hovers outside of them, the Coronavirus.
The seed is being uprooted from what was once the norm the familiar space of how we interacted within our society, related with one another and maintained a living, all that was deemed secure and unshakable shook that’s why the soil has cracks in it but yet there is water surrounding the soil.
The water represents hope, how we are all undergoing a cleansing from what we thought we can’t live without to what is most dear and important to us, the water also represents the potential for fertility coming up with new and improved opportunities, ways of living, jobs and communication. even though it comes wrapped up as an obstacle, a hardship.
The seed is alone in this artwork, placed at the centre of the page, this is symbolic of how the lockdown forced each individual to take time off their busy lives, Being around crowds to make time for themselves, to self actualize, to focus on what really is important to them as beings and all that they claim to be connected too.
The roots are not in the soil but about the soil, meaning that all that was stable, all that seemed like firmed establishments are weakened by the wind of Coronavirus, people lost their jobs, assets plummeted in prices. The roots Can also touch on family, it made people reevaluate all the connections that they have with others
The purple sky represents the knock of death that comes with this virus that forces people to go in a cacoon like, seed state to protect themselves and to go through a metamorphic process
