Belongings

A drawing about belonging and immigration in southern africa

About the drawing

Belongings is a layered drawing inspired by the tersely documented violent death of Joseph Letsela, a Mosotho mineworker from Qacha’s Nek, Lesotho, where I once lived. His clinical cause of death—“Open fracture skull”—was one of many haunting entries my historian partner found while researching 1980s mineworkers in South Africa. These documents, often listing only returned items like shirts or gumboots, reveal a brutal system of migrant labour and loss. In the drawing, a clothesline links the rural home he likely loved in Lesotho with the mine in South Africa where he died—a gesture of care, memory, and resistance.

Read more about this artwork on my blog here

This drawing was created for an “exhibit” on Edge Effects with words by Dr. Christopher Conz. Read the piece “Humanizing Migrants and Miners of Southern Africa” on Edge Effects. Edge Effects is a digital magazine about environmental issues produced by graduate students at the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE), a research center within the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Belongings by Christina Balch, 2025
Acrylic, watercolor, graphite and colored pencil on watercolor paper
105 cm x 75 cm (41 inches x 29.5 inches)

Artwork photography by Kobus Robbertze
Studio space provided by the University of the Free State, Fine Arts Department

DETAIL images of belongings

YEAR: 2025

MEDIA:
Acrylic paint
Watercolor
Graphite
Colored pencil
Watercolor paper