Botswana’s Peter Mabeo and Beullah Serema take the country’s traditional craftsmanship onto the international art stage, transforming diamonds, basketry and woodcarving into extraordinary works of art at London’s Frieze Masters 2026.
BY GAZETTE REPORTER
Botswana’s celebrated designer Peter Mabeo and fellow Mabeo Studio creative Beullah Serema are making their mark on London’s prestigious Frieze Masters 2026, where their handcrafted creations feature in an immersive De Beers exhibition exploring the origins of natural diamonds. Their participation places Botswana’s artistic traditions alongside international contemporary art and design, bringing the skills of local craftspeople to a global audience.
BOTSWANA CRAFT TAKES CENTRE
The exhibition, titled Voyage Through the Diamond Realm, Chapter II: On the Birth of a Diamond, features a specially commissioned collection of handcrafted amulets created by Mabeo Studio in collaboration with basket weavers, potters and woodcarvers from across Botswana.
Each piece brings together traditional materials, generations of knowledge and natural diamonds supplied by De Beers. The resulting creations celebrate the relationship between people, their environment and the materials they transform through craftsmanship.
“For this work, basket weavers, potters and wood carvers from across Botswana bring different crafts and materials together,” Mabeo and Serema explained in a joint statement. “Each amulet carries the particular skill of the person who made it.”
THE HANDS BEHIND BEAUTY
For Mabeo Studio, whose creative philosophy crosses the boundaries of art, design and architecture, the collaboration reflects a longstanding appreciation for natural materials and traditional skills.
Rather than concealing the processes behind each object, the designers celebrate the individuality of the makers and their relationship with the materials.
“The making remains visible,” the pair explained, emphasising the importance of the hand, technique and sensory understanding that each craftsperson brings to the finished work.
Their creations share the exhibition with a monumental five-metre tapestry by Shifron Mercury Studio, woven using natural fibres from Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Incorporating ceramic fragments and ostrich eggshell beads, the installation evokes the geological layers of the Earth and the cosmic origins of diamonds.
A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
Presented across three rooms, the De Beers installation takes visitors from the formation of carbon in ancient stars to the creation of diamonds deep within the Earth’s mantle.
An immersive cinematic experience explores this extraordinary transformation, while another space displays rough natural diamonds illuminated by ultraviolet light, revealing the blue fluorescence present in some stones.
Lynn Serfaty, De Beers’ General Manager for Natural Diamonds, said the exhibition brings together artists and craftspeople from Botswana, the United Kingdom and France to explore the relationship between creation and creativity.
BOTSWANA BEYOND BORDERS
For Mabeo and Serema, the significance lies in the convergence of different artistic traditions, materials and people.
Their contribution places Botswana’s traditional makers within an international creative conversation, demonstrating how familiar materials and inherited skills can find new expression in contemporary design.
Following its London presentation, the exhibition is expected to tour internationally, taking these Botswana-made creations to audiences beyond Frieze Masters.
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