FABRICS TELLS STORIES TOO
by Zandile Makroti
Fabrics Tell Stories Too is born from a refusal to remain within the frame. It asks: what happens when art is no longer only what hangs on the wall, but also what is worn, carried, cleansed, bled, or mourned? What happens when materials themselves become testimonies of memory, resilience, and survival?
The journey begins with Olivia Babel, whose handwoven sculptures centre on territory, identity, and cultural hybridity. Working with natural wool, golden fabrics, and cotton thread, she maps geography, memory, and the body through fibre. Each woven form becomes a landscape of remembrance, grounding the exhibition in connection and continuity.
Quinton Mawila follows, transforming discarded bullhorns and Shangani bags into vessels of endurance. Through his reimagining of found materials, he explores how identity and resilience are bound together in acts of transformation.
João Ladeira’s Beauty Makes You See Beyond the Lovely Sight deepens this reflection, unfolding as a meditation on memory, displacement, and transcendence. His wax fabric becomes a vessel of remembrance, honouring those lost to movement and silence. Through fabric, he insists on remembering, on keeping alive the stories of those who sought elsewhere.
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Banner Artwork Details: Zandile Makroti, To be woman, 2023, Film/ Photography, 746 x 420x 35 mm, R10,000.00 ex. VAT
Zandile Makroti, To be woman, 2023, Film/ Photography, 746 x 420 x 35 mm, R10 000 ex. VAT
At the heart of the exhibition lies the body. In To Be a Woman, I explore menstruation as both burden and divinity. Through performance, film, and fabric, the work reflects on cycles marked by pain yet filled with sacredness.
Cleansing follows. Turakella Editha Gyindo’s loofah sculptures speak of purification, preparing the self for both sacred and social space. Tumisang Khalipha’s reflections on water and grief echo this, where mourning finds release and movement becomes healing.
From cleansing we move into acceptance. In Free Spirit Billie Zangewa honours a departed friend by imagining a body freed from earthly constraints, the work embodies both remembrance and the radical act of release. Ngollo Mlengeya’s Blemish reminds us that imperfection unites us. Beauty emerges through the cracks and marks that reveal the tenderness of being human. Yet protection is never far — Lungiswa Gqunta re-imagines razor wire in fabric as botanical resistance, where exclusion transforms into growth and memory reclaims lines of violence.
Fabrics Tell Stories Too is not only an exhibition, it is a journey of rupture and repair, of softness and survival. It reminds us that stories live not only in paint, but in every fibre and object touched by life.
Quinton Mawila, Kurhula, 2025, Photography, 42 cm (W) × 74.6 cm (H) × 3.5 cm (D), R10 000 ex. VAT, CONTACT TO BUY.
Where territory, tenderness, and memory rest on the same thread...
What a curse it is to bleed for the future and be called divine.
Zandile Makroti, To be woman, 2023, Film/ Photography, 746 x 420 x 35 mm, R10 000 ex. VAT, CONTACT TO BUY.
We cleanse with water, and in doing so, we return to ourselves.
A journey of making, unmaking, and becoming.
In the beauty of blemish, we find protection, fragility, and bonds unbroken.
Featured artists
EXHIBITION CURATOR, Zandile Makroti
Zandile (Zandi) Makroti is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and production designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her practice moves across film photography, fine art materials, fabric and costume design, through which she explores feminism, ancestral memory, inner strength and female psychology.
Through richly textured works that merge visual storytelling with spatial and costume-based narratives, Zandi examines human behaviour, particularly the emotional and psychological landscapes of women, through a deeply intuitive and empathetic lens.
A qualified production designer and certified UX researcher, she draws on her background in film and design to craft experiences that are both conceptually grounded and emotionally immersive. Her curatorial approach considers not only the artwork but also how audiences move, feel and reflect within a space. Film remains a guiding influence across all her creative outputs, with each project unfolding as a layered narrative that bridges memory, materiality and identity.
Tumisang Khalipha, Segopostos, 2025, Mixed Media On Paper, 122 x 107cm, R35 500 ex. VAT, Unframed, CONTACT TO BUY.
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In partnership with Art School Africa.
05 Nov 2025
