Story Vase

Beadwork is an integral part of the Zulu artistic tradition in South Africa. It enables women to express their hopes and concerns despite cultural taboos and language barriers. Following a 2010 meeting organized with the members of the Swedish design collective Front, five women from KwaZulu-Natal taking part in the Siyazama Project put together short stories that they reproduced by threading glass beads on to metal wires. Glass was then blown inside that framework to create a vase. In this work, Khishwepi Sithole related the following: “I believe my beadwork can get the message across. Some of my dolls tell old Zulu stories, others tell their own personal story. I once made a doll of a mother beating up her child because she had HIV. This doll was to tell people not to hit people who have HIV.”