Captured in time
Basotho women’s mural art
Photographs by Alex Robertson
You’re invited to the opening of a photographic exhibition featuring painted houses built by SeSotho-speaking farm workers in the Eastern Free State during the 1970s.
It is women who decorate the walls of their homes – an art known as litema – a word derived from the SeSotho verb ho lema – to cultivate – and it applies to engraved patterns, relief mouldings, mosaics and mural painting.
In 1975, driving south from Bethlehem, Alex was riveted by the brightly painted houses he saw from a distance across the farm fields. Three years later, he returned to the area with his camera – with only half a day to shoot. Treasuring these images for nearly half a century, and now wanting them to be appreciated by a broader public, he has made this exhibition possible.
OPENING
6PM, WEDNESDAY, 2 APRIL 2025
VENUE
Cape Institute for Architecture
71 Hout Street
Cape Town