What happens to your identity as a black South African when you no longer live within the socioeconomic or political or even the cultural norms and criminal violence that defines so much of who we believe we are?

If you are a black South African who is or has been living abroad for some time how do you define who you are?

To get some perspective on this I spoke to a few South Africans who are currently living in other countries to try to understand what their lived experience has been in how being away affects how they see and engage with their sense of identity.

I figured that this topic would need more than one person and also cannot be tackled from a strictly spiritual perspective so it will be a mini-series talking to different people from different countries.

The first person I will be talking to is Lerato Shadi.

Lerato Shadi is a visual and performance artist whose work challenges common assumptions to critique Western notions of history and make visible that which is invisible or overlooked. She works across video, performance, and installations.

Lerato was Born in Mahikeng, South Africa and now lives and works in Berlin, Germany.