Food Tree

A silkscreen print titled Tree of Life by the Angolan-South African artist Lupepu Kaheke (b.1954). Short Biography: Luhepu Kaheke was born in 1954 in Dirico, Angola. After attending school for only a year, she had to leave due to the outbreak of war in the area. Subsequently, her family lived in the veld, but they were constantly on the move, fleeing from one place to another as part of forced relocations of indigenous people . Eventually, her family settled in Rundu, where Luhepu's family joined other !Xun-speaking families seeking refuge at the Omega Military Camp. It was there that Kaheke met her husband, Katombela Ntoma, who was a corporal in the South African Defence Force. In the late 1980s, he left the army and decided to make a home in Tsumkwe, Namibia, where they earned a living by cultivating vegetables. In the early 1990s, the couple secured employment on a farm near Schmidtsdrift. Katombela worked as a skilled tracker and hunter for the landowner, while Luhepu contributed by working in the fields during the harvest seasons.