Medu Art Ensemble

Medu Art Ensemble (1979-1985) was a cultural collective based in Gaborone, Botswana.

Medu means ‘roots’ in the southern African language of Sesotho.

The organisation played a key role in shaping South Africa’s culture of struggle against apartheid.

History

The collective was formed by South African cultural activists exiled after the 1976 Soweto uprising - including Molefe Pheto, from Mhloti Theatre and Thami Mnyele. It worked with artists back home, Botswana citizens, and some from other countries. Medu used the creative arts – visual image, theatre, music and literature – to give voice to South Africa’s liberation struggle. Over the eight years of its existence, Medu varied from 15 to as many as 50 members. Most were South Africa exiles. Medu members preferred to call themselves "cultural workers" rather than "artists".

Medu Art Ensemble was divided into six creative units: theatre, graphic arts and design, publications and research, film, music, and photography. Led by an annually elected executive body, Medu’s stated aims, in its own words, included:

training Botswana nationals and exiles in the above-mentioned skills,
fostering an environment suitable for cultural work,
creating closer relations between cultural workers and the community,
establishing closer relations and practical cooperation amongst Southern African cultural workers.

Artists involved in Medu's work incudes writers Keorapetse Kgositsile, Mongane Wally Serote and Mandla Langa; musicians Jonas Gwangwa and Dennis Mpale; and visual artist Thamsanqa Mnyele. Other cultural activists in literature and drama included Pheto Serote, Bachana Mokwena, Baleka Khotsitsile, Marius Schoon, Patrick Fitzgerald and Thele Moema.

Medu saw its aesthetic and cultural approach as rooted in the strands of South African resistance and Africanist culture, building upon the work of cultural organisations such as Staffrider. A Pan Africanist and anti-colonial enterprise, Medu also engaged with international revolutionary art including the work of German theatre-maker Bertolt Brecht, Vietnamese resistance poetry, the Mexican mural painters and Chile’s muralists who spoke back to dictatorship.

In 1982, Medu hosted the Culture and Resistance Symposium and Festival of the Arts at the University of Botswana in Gaborone. Over five days, both South Africans who were living in exile and those living their own ‘exiled’ existence within South Africa, along with people from Europe, the United States, and across southern Africa gathered to discuss the essential role of culture in accelerating the struggle for South African liberation, which was becoming more imminent each day. The festival included performances across artistic genres, including the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s production of Marabi. There were also several musical performances featuring Hugh Masekela on the trumpet, Barry Gilder on the guitar, and Abdullah Ibrahim (known then as Dollar Brand) on the piano.

On June 14, 1985, the SADF raided Gaborone, killing twelve people, including artist Thami Mnyele, and Medu treasurer Mike Hamlyn; a number of other houses of Medu members were destroyed, and people killed in them. Medu ceased to exist overnight. Many Medu members left the country; others remained in Botswana as members of the underground, not as artists in residence.