Khayalethu Witbooi in his recent exhibition titled History Begins with a Garden, which explores a narrative that has long been debunked, the role gardens and flora played in colonial domination, oppression and systematic violence. Witbooi looks at the story of the garden and how it symbolises and was used as a tool to perpetuate colonial violence. His exhibition though using mainly flowers is ugly, showing the other face of plants and how they have been used in the colonisation of peoples.
If you look at the word colony, it comes from Latin andmeans farmer, here lays Khaya’s genius and his reflection in History Begins With A Garden.
