Tranka (2025)

Artist's Inner Monologue:

This is a story about my grandfather. Like many men of his time,he was recruited from Nkange, Botswana to work in the mines of Johannesburg. He returned home years later with nothing but a trunk ,(always locked, never to be opened ) and the silence of a man who had endured more than he could ever say. When I was born or at least when I became conscious enough to notice, I remember him as a man who always sat under a tree. Silent. Distant.That tree became his place of rest, his retreat from the world. And I was always his only company. All he ever wanted was to provide for his family and children.Just like the fathers from my previous works, carrying the weight of their children on their backs, my grandfather also carried that weight but in a different way. He carried it in his heart and in his mind even when his hands were empty. It is the story of a grandfather whose truth remained locked away, but whose sacrifice carried us forward.