Made in collaboration with Elizabeth and Vincent Gwebu, bead workers originally from Mpumalanga, now living in Philippi, Cape Town.
These stools are based on the materials, techniques and forms of traditional Ndeble dolls.
Ndebele art speaks no longer just to the indigenous community, but now serves also as an aesthetic commodity, an economic "bridge to the 21(st) century" for South African Ndebele women artists and their families. We are witnessing an artistic society of women proceeding through their own cultural aesthetic evolution.
Instead of producing more and more traditional dolls that are common in South Africa, and whose only function is a curio or keepsake, we are using tenets of Ndebele culture to produce furniture that is relevant/attractive to an international market with sustainable economic benefits.
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