African History and Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip to Africa.

This article examines the group of paintings titled *Your Trip to Africa* by US-based Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi, which critique conventional representations of Africa and its people. Inspired by Peter Kubelka's 1966 experimental film *Our Trip to Africa*, Mokgosi's work challenges viewers to reconsider not only what they see but how they see African subjects, cautioning against racialized, essentializing, or aestheticized portrayals rooted in Western narratives. Through large-scale, interconnected paintings depicting diverse scenes of African life, Mokgosi emphasizes the complexity and agency of African individuals beyond colonial or bourgeois stereotypes, while his annotated critiques of Kubelka's film highlight its instrumentalization of Africans as mere props in a Western story. Ultimately, the paintings and commentary urge historians and viewers to question their own perspectives and the narratives imposed on African histories, acknowledging the partial and provisional nature of representation.