Molimo O Nko E Metsi is an abstract visual and sonic response to Monaheng’s memories of growing up in Lesotho and visiting his grandfather in the mountains. Combining two mediums, the artwork extends the boundaries of imagination, peeking into the past and meditating on the future. It represents beauty, futurism, love, ancient wisdom – at once traditional and African, a citizen of the displacement that Southern African people have suffered since Mfecane War times. The work negotiates migration politics by placing the rural in the urban, questioning belonging and identity. Cows – significant in many cultures – abound in Sesotho proverbs: moshanyana se llele ho lisa, likhomo li kopanya malapa, as well as the title of the work, which translates to ‘the god with a moist nose’.

Tseliso Monaheng is a Maseru-born, Johannesburg-based artist working at the intersection of culture and technology through words, static and moving images and sound. His writing has been published in Fader, Guardian, Africasacountry, Mail and Guardian and Something We Africans Got.

As an image-maker, he has collaborated with South African musicians including Msaki, Thandi Ntuli, Linda Sikhakhane and Malcolm Jiyane. As videographer and director, he worked on A Gentle Magic (2018), Brothers and Sisters with Soul (SABC1, 2018), and Blow Up or Cave: The Story of South African Hip Hop (2020).