You have to take your hat off to Thebe Ikalafeng. After all, which other marketer across the breadth of Africa has the chutzpah to commission a three-metre-tall canvas featuring themselves at a table where an eclectic mix of the continent’s most prominent voices are seated.
Think former emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nelson Mandela and Wangari Maathai, anti-hair discrimination advocate Zulaikha Patel, pioneering Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, queen of song Miriam Makeba and polarising Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
However, as the founder of the pan-African advisory firm, Brand Leadership points out on Thursday afternoon as I view this evocative work at the Unisa Art Gallery in Pretoria, this is not so much a vanity project but — with our continent turned upside down on the canvas so that it looms above the rest of the globe — a provocation to challenge our place in the world.
“Africa ReUnion — as the painting by Mark Modimola is titled — is not a lament or a backward gaze. It’s a declaration that we will no longer wait for others to correct the record,” Thebe says when he addresses the audience at the private opening of an exhibition of the same name.
While the event was due to start at 3.30pm, when we arrive, workers are still loading furniture into the space located in the Kgorong Building of the university’s Muckleneuk Campus.
When proceedings finally begin an hour later, curator Tshegofatso Seoka gives an overview of the exhibition, which also features a range of works from artists across the continent.
“This is an exhibition which celebrates African imagination, creativity and intellectual thought across the continent and the diaspora,” Tshegofatso tells an audience that includes students, artists and academics. Present are gallery board chair Siyasanga Tyali, Wits’ Lesley Mofokeng, historian Kwesi Prah, and Mpho Ngoepe, who was representing Unisa in the absence of vice-chancellor Puleng LenkaBula.
Back to Thebe’s artwork: it is no accident that one chair at that round table is vacant.
“That empty seat is for every one of us to also take our seat at the table,” the convivial brand guru says, encouraging those present — during this month commemorating the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (the pre-cursor to the African Union) — to ensure their voices are heard.
We then move on to another room — this time the ballroom of the Summer Place event venue in Hyde Park, Johannesburg — where the AU’s development agency, Nepad (now known as Auda-Nepad) was holding a celebration marking its silver jubilee.
Under the steering of CEO Nardos Bekele-Thomas, this Midrand-based institution has been tasked with forging pathways for continental co-operation through ambitious cross-border projects, from roads to railways and energy initiatives aimed at boosting intra-African trade.
Another delayed start, but this time with good reason. Guests representing many of the 55 African states came straight from the closing of the first day of a two-day steering committee session, co-chaired by Angolan ambassador Téte António and Burundi’s François Nibizi.
After canapés including Moroccan-style falafels served with hummus and chopped coriander, and seared prawns on lemon aioli, guests moved into the main venue for a starter of butternut soup spiced with cumin, before being welcomed by Nardos dressed in a striking yellow ensemble, which the Ethiopian-born economist said she had designed herself.
“This is a reminder that institutions are not built in a single moment — they are built through conviction, continuity, through difficult choices and through the discipline of carrying an idea across generations,“ she said.
“We gather here to honour a deliberate political and intellectual choice by a generation of African leaders who believed that Africa should no longer be spoken for, planned for or developed from the outside,” she added, referencing the founders of the body — Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdelaziz Boutefika, Hosni Mubarak, Abdoulaye Wade and Thabo Mbeki, who also features in Ikalafeng’s painted table scene.
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