About
Embodied Practice and Inquiry.
Dumelang! My name is Lebo Masiteng
Ke Leaooa, Mopedi, Motshoeneng. Maila-Ngoatheloa.
Qhoku ya diqhobong, ditsullung, boritsa-tshwene.
Seyalemethati sa mesiko ya dikgohlo.
My practice encompasses research, making, and cultural consulting, with the term Litemana, meaning "verses" in Sesotho, reflecting the diverse methods and materials I explore. I approach dwelling as an embodied experience rather than a mere structure, emphasizing that to dwell means to be present, engaged, and connected. The way I see it, the body serves as the first form of architecture, embodying rhythm, gesture, and memory.
Through making garments, vessels and architectural forms, I investigate how shelter, containment, and care emerge from this embodied experience. My focus is on the women, or boNkgono, who preserve and transmit dwelling practices and indigenous knowledge across generations. Their crafts, ways of holding and transmitting memory, and spatial knowledge challenge conventional notions of knowing.
At the heart of my work lies a central question: How does the body need to be held to live? This inquiry informs my collaborations across fashion, architecture, art, and culture, where I aim to develop frameworks that emerge from lived experience, sensitivity to ongoing history and heritage, and relational intelligence.
Mosebetsi le tsebo ya BoNkgono
Inter- and intracultural ethnographic work listening to, tending to, and mapping the existing and long-held work and wisdom of women, particularly grandmothers.
Method: embodied, positional fieldwork
Conceptual dressmaking
Garments are our second skin. They hold the body and mediate its interactions with other human beings and space.
Material: cotton
Method: slow design
Sculpture and Vessels
Through clay, I am constantly rehearsing and thinking about how vessels function as mediums that foster a sense of presence and the experience of dwelling. These vessels, whether physical or metaphorical, allow us to connect more deeply with our surroundings and infuse our dwelling spaces with our essence in our absence.
Material: terracotta
Architecture
Litema and mud houses (vernacular architecture). This practice traces and maps the visual language, materials, making processes and ways of inhabiting space.
Material: Soil, mud, cow dung and pigments.
Method: As directed by respective custodians.