31 Mar 2015

The Botswana National Museum for the next two months will be decorated with arts and crafts in wood carvings, basketry, beadwork and pottery, among others.

This will be through an exhibition dubbed arts and crafts of Botswana. It was an all-encompassing exhibition of some of Botswana cultural artifacts, the objective of which was to trace their historical significance from the basic traditional functionality, to their use today

The exhibition reflected how the crafts had evolved over time, while being part of the ongoing partnership between Botswana National Museum and Ditsong Museums of South Africa.

Speaking at the official opening of this exchange exhibition, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Elias Magosi said the Department of National Museum and Monuments signed a three year Memorandum of Understanding with South Africa’s Ditsong Museums in 2013.

Through this MoU, the two countries had agreed to cooperate in areas of collections management, monuments development, capacity building mobile museums programme and exchange in expertise and resources. 

The PS thus said the exhibition would serve to strengthen collaboration between the Botswana National Museum and SA’s Ditsong Museums.

He said last year, four National Museum experts visited Ditsong to learn about collections management, taxidermy and electronic documentation.

Meanwhile, Ditsong Museums comprises eight different museums ranging from those of Ethnology, Natural History, Geology, History and Open Air Museums. ENDS