We Didn’t Choose To Be Born Here
$48
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Thero Makepe’s We Didn’t Choose To Be Born Here is an exploration of Botswana and South Africa’s socio-political fabric told through a personal lens.
The narrative centres on a family torn apart by systemic forces. In 1958, the artist's grandfather, Hippolytus Mothopeng, fled Apartheid South Africa for Botswana, pursuing a peaceful middle-class life as a town clerk and jazz musician. Conversely, his uncle, Zephaniah Mothopeng, became president of the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), serving 15 years on Robben Island. Juxtaposing their paths, the book contrasts the lives of children raised in quiet exile with those growing up under state repression, torture, and state raids like the 1985 SADF raid on Gaborone.
Visually and textually, the project functions not through a singular auteur lens, but as a custodial collaboration. The artist acts as performer and curator retracing steps, staging past events, and rendering emotional states of grief and anxiety. The anchor of this 60-year span is the artist’s mother, Pinkie, whose aging process bridges the timeline against archival traces of her counterpart, Sheila Mothopeng, who spoke at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Private family albums, home movies, and public media intersect with music histories – from unrecorded exile jazz bands to South African classics – framing art as a sanctuary amid turmoil.
Taking structural inspiration from the novel format, the book bridges a speculative visual documentary approach with intimate, textual recollections by the author. By blending staged portraiture, documentary photography, re-enactments, and rich archival materials, the project weaves personal stories into national history to ask: how do individuals navigate personal responsibility, ideology, and class during times of national crisis?
We Didn’t Choose to be Born Here moves from the 2016 #FeesMustFall protests to an ending of profound resilience, anchored by family matriarch Urbania Mothopeng’s declaration of spiritual richness.
- Published in August 2026
- Size 150 x 210 mm
- Pages 160
- 1st Edition 500 copies
- Printed in Italy by Grafiche Veneziane
- Papers Fedrigoni Materica, Coral Book White
- Typface Sabon LT Pro by Monotype
- ISBN 978-88-946866-1-6
- Editing and Project Supervision Giuseppe Oliverio
- Photographs and Text Thero Makepe
- Design Giulia Boccarossa
- Copy Editing Tracy Murinik
