This Is Botswana: Through the Eyes of Its Artists
As Safari Destinations celebrates 20 years, I have found myself thinking a lot about Botswana: what this country has given us, the people who have shaped our journey, and what we want our legacy to look like for the next 20 years.
Out of those conversations came This Is Botswana, an exhibition celebrating Botswana through the eyes of its artists. And I am incredibly excited to say that it is now live.
The online exhibition opened on 28 October and will run for three months, creating a window into Botswana’s extraordinary creative talent for people both here at home and around the world. But the story behind it actually started much more simply.
It started with the walls of our office
When we moved into our new Safari Destinations offices, we wanted the space to feel unmistakably Botswana. We began looking for local art and commissioning artists to bring some of our walls to life.
What followed was a wonderful journey of discovery. We found painters, photographers, muralists, sculptors and other creatives, each telling a different story about Botswana. Some captured our wildlife and landscapes. Others captured our people, culture and everyday life. Some were established artists, while others were still building their names and finding a market for their work.
The more we discovered, the more we realised that these artists deserve to be seen by a much wider audience. And that became the seed for This Is Botswana.
Art tells the story of a place
For me, this exhibition is about much more than beautiful artwork. Our artists are Brand Ambassadors for Botswana.
They show us Botswana through their eyes. They interpret our landscapes, wildlife, people, culture and communities in ways that are uniquely their own. And in doing so, they help tell the story of who we are.
This is especially relevant to tourism. Our lodges, camps, offices, restaurants and other tourism spaces have an incredible opportunity to tell a richer and more authentic story of Botswana through the things we choose to put into them.
Instead of something mass-produced and sourced from somewhere else in the world, imagine more of those spaces filled with work created by Botswana artists: art that has a name behind it, a story behind it, and an economic opportunity behind it.
Every Purchase Creates Opportunity
That thinking is closely connected to our Positive Procurement Challenge and a philosophy that has become increasingly important to us at Safari Destinations: Every Purchase Creates Opportunity.
When we deliberately choose to buy locally, whether that is artwork, food, furnishings, gifts, textiles or professional services, we help create opportunities for Botswana businesses and Botswana people. The creative economy should be part of that conversation.
If This Is Botswana encourages a lodge to commission a Botswana artist, an office to buy a local painting, a traveller to take a piece of Botswana home with them, or simply introduces an artist to an audience they may otherwise never have reached, then we have achieved something meaningful.
From online to Maun
While the exhibition is now available online, I am especially excited that some of the artworks will also have a physical life here in Maun.
We will host a private exhibition at our 20th birthday celebration in Maun on 13 November, allowing our guests and partners to experience a selection of the works in person and, we hope, take a piece of Botswana home with them.
After our celebration, a selection of the artworks still available for purchase will be showcased to the public at The Duck Café, opposite Maun Airport, in partnership with Maun Made. This next chapter will give the exhibition a wider public life while continuing to create visibility and sales opportunities for the participating artists.
I love the idea that visitors arriving in or leaving Maun will have the opportunity to pause, discover an artist they may not have known before, and perhaps take a piece of Botswana’s story home with them.
Just the beginning
Perhaps what excites me most is that I don’t see This Is Botswana as an end product. I see it as the beginning of something.
Through our work with local creatives, Crafted Botswana, Travel For Impact and our wider legacy initiatives, we want to continue exploring how tourism can create platforms and markets for Botswana talent.
Our 20th birthday has given us an opportunity not only to look backwards with enormous gratitude, but also to ask what we want to help nurture going forward. For me, this exhibition represents exactly that.
It is about pride in Botswana. It is about storytelling. It is about creativity and entrepreneurship. And, most importantly, it is about opportunity.
This Is Botswana.
Botswana, through the eyes of its artists.
