Transposing an Echo: Reimagining Oral Setswana Poetry through Digital Intervention
by Tebogo Boikanyo Matshana
Long Gallery: 07.08.25 - 25.09.25
The digital artist's book Three Bird Poems contemplates some of the cultural values embedded in Setswana oral poetry and grapples with how the oral tradition of performing poetry offers a proverbial lens into themes that may have once been cultural norms. The poem Koagodira for one, recalls a time when birds and people were believed to communicate with one another, mutually protecting and guiding one another. The audiovisual transmutation of the oral poem foregrounds the narrative of the symbiotic relationship between people and birds. This gentle poem story calls to mind elements of fantasy in storytelling. The work asks: how might this come alive when digitised? Through parallax animation, such moments are visualised as moving freeze frames, interestingly preserving oral memory through digital motion.
Pekwa, celebrates the falcon, imaginatively interpreting the text, the multimedia poem plays with the words as conceptual entry points to interactive experiences, who is the little girl referred to in the poem? How might her movement embody the falcons ability to fly? How might this be explored visually? The poems offer opportunities for exploration through the layer of interactivity. The interactive poem titled Nnonyane tse pedi (which translates to Two birds) is a short nursery rhyme that doubles as an oral poem in Setswana explored through digital interactive design. In my reading, the oral poem which talks about two birds coming and going opens up room for thematic thought and interpretation, who are the two respective birds; where would they be going ; why would they return? Thoughts around immigration, homing and belonging come to mind. What does it mean to occupy a liminal place of coming and going? Perhaps human experiences are mirrored in avian experiences of global movement.
As digital artefacts intended to document oral poetry in digital format, perhaps these short poems invite us to the threshold of inquiry. Intended as an exploration of ergodic literature theory in practice, the interactive poems invite readers to navigate the oral poem by actively engaging the objects, texts and elements in the respective storyworlds. While the digital artefact invites interactive navigation, the physical artist’s book offers a contrasting moment of meditation through quietude. Printed on seed paper the artefact calls to mind the footsteps of birds treading the earth lightly, coming and going, guiding. Birds are all around us, often in the background, resilient creatures, engaged in the task of building, homing, communicating in code. Visually and metaphorically the work is concerned with what we can learn from birds.