This year Africa Textile Talks extended its offering with an exhibition titled Threads of Renewal curated by Twyg’s fashion editor, Tandekile Mkize. Open for the duration of the talks programme, 29 July – 2 August, the exhibition created a space for ideas to take form and speakers’ works to be experienced at Church House in the Cape Town’s city centre.
Tandekile brought together a group of visionary designers, artisans, and artists who presented fabric as a medium for environmental, political and cultural restoration. “The goal was to create a space where cloth becomes a textural invocation of resilience, hope, care and reciprocity,” says Tandekile. Unfolding across three zones – Memory and ancestry, Healing and resistance, and Regeneration and ecology – the exhibition offered a layered journey through heritage, healing, and renewal.
Threads of Renewal loom installation by Sibabalwe Ndlwana. Featured works by Tali Lerh-Sacks, Maria Caley, Nina Kruger, Leila Atelier, Cecil Skotnes tapestry by Stephens Tapestry Studio, Lucie Panis Jones, crafts and textiles from Design Afrika
At they entered the space, visitors were met with a central installation by Sibabalwe Ndlwana: a loom embedded in soil, surrounded by natural grasses and the scent of rooibos mulch. Cotton yarn spilt from the loom onto the floor, forming literal threads that connected the three zones of the exhibition.
To the right of the loom was the Healing and resistance, assembled by three members of the Lesela Collective, Wacy Zacarias (Mozambique), Djamila de Sousa (Mozambique), and Yemi Awosile (UK). Their collaborative work, Cosmology of Materials, investigates an approach that views earth, water, fire, and air as material collaborators and infuses textiles and craft with memory and sacred intelligence.
At the centre of their installation lay The Memory Cloth, a ritual altar left deliberately unfinished to invite visitors to contribute, adding words, symbols, threads, or prayers, transforming the cloth into a living, collective act of remembrance and repair. Alongside it, the book Inzalo Ye Moya (“Birth of Spirit”) documented a personal spiritual language created by Wacy, drawing on the divination bones used by sangomas reimagined through dreams, rituals, and the spirit world. By bridging indigenous knowledge with material innovation, Cosmology of Materials expanded sustainability into the spiritual realm, reminding us that healing is never solitary and that cloth remembers.
Cosmology of Materials Installation view by Wacy Zacarias, Djamila de Sousa and Yemi Awosile
Left: Tools to add contributions on The Memory Cloth on a Kuinua woven Carpet woven by Kuinua women from Palma, Cabo Delgado. Right: Yemi Awosile contributing to The Memory Cloth
At the foot of the the stage, curated shelves displayed African textiles and crafts from Design Afrika, Mekeka Designs, and Twyg’s textile archive. These works connected the exhibition to broader craft traditions such as ceremonial relics, weaving, basketry, and natural dyeing from across the continent.
The Regeneration and ecology zone explored post–fossil fuel textile practices such as Nina Kruger’s felted plant-based cloth, Stephanie Bentum’s felted studies, and Ilkhe du Toit’s biodegradable fibre garments. The Naked Ape x Botanical Nomad SS25 collaboration and Ilse Menck’s dye experiments reveal the alchemy of natural dye sources. Here, textiles were animated as active participants in nature’s cycle.
Left: Nake Ape x Botanical Nomad SS25 detail of eco-printed garments. Right: Ilse Menck’s Raw Ochre pigment dyeing (the colour is extracted from rocks and clay that contain red and orange tones, then mixed with protein powder in the form of soya protein as a mordant for the colour, then painted onto the surface of the fabric
Passing through Nastasha Sale’s Norens – traditional Japanese fabric dividers – visitors went onto the stage for the last section, the Memory and ancestry zone. This honoured textiles as living archives, vessels of ancestral memory, ritual knowledge, and acts of resistance against erasure. The Ninevites’ Kuba Doodle tassels met visitors at the top of the stairs to the stage, signalling an entry into a space where cloth became both monument and messenger, echoing Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s words: “Cloth is to the African what monuments are to Westerners.”
Star Shongwe, exhibition visitor gazing at Cecil Skotnes tapestry woven by Margaret Zulu, Rhoda Sori, Virginia Mzimba and Margueite Stephens from Stephen’s Tapestry Studio and Study in Stripes by Lucie-Panis Jones
Here, Onesimo Bam and Uno July’s conceptual piece transformed the space into a soundscape, the crisp crackle of vinyl carrying Uno July’s refrain, “When skin forgets, cloth remembers,” through the hall. This sonic thread wove between works by artists such as Maria Caley, whose dress installation unfolded from her research of Aawambo cultural dress and the impact of Christian missionisation in Namibia, and Yonela Makoba’s Umdiyadiya waManzi which emerged from Xhosa cosmology and ritual studies. Together with Bulumko Mbete’s intimate reanimation of family archives and Tali Lehr-Sacks’ protective wool felted sculptural Mother Cocoon, these works invited visitors to consider cloth as both material and spiritual vessel.
At the close of the stage, a constellation of beadwork extended this narrative into the language of adornment and ceremony. Contemporary expressions by The Herd (South Africa) and Sidai (Tanzania) sat alongside a traditional Maasai dancing skirt and a Zulu beaded skirt from Design Afrika, each piece a testament to the ways beadwork holds identity, status, and belonging, often carrying stories through generations. In this zone, textiles and crafts formed a visual vernacular of heritage, resilience, and continuity.
Exhibition visitors study Khanyislie by Bulumko Mbete and the beaded expressions display
Although Threads of Renewal was open for only five days, the conversations it sparked will endure far longer. We thank all the artists, designers, and visitors whose presence and engagement made this space of reflection, healing, and regeneration possible.
For those who could not attend in person or those who wish to revisit it with fresh insight, we invite you to experience Threads of Renewal through The Dollie House’s lens and via a 360° virtual tour created by assistant curator Larah Fisher.
Participating Artists:
Bulumko Mbete
Yonela Makoba
The Herd
Onesimo Bam x Uno July
Cecil Skotnes (Stephen’s Tapestry Studio)
Design Afrika
Wacy Zacarias
Djamila De Sousa
Yemi Awosile
Nina Kruger
Stephanie Bentum
Ilse Menck
Nastasha Sale
Ilke du Toit
Naked Ape x Botanical Nomad
Maria Caley
Leila Atelier
Sibabalwe Ndlwana
Lucie Panis-Jones
- All images by The Dollie House
- Curated by Tandekile Mkize, assisted by Larah Fisher and with additional support from Ayabulela Dleku and FEDISA
