North Gallery

Mapula Embroideries - Fabricating Fables

28 March to 18 April 2026

Mapula Embroideries have been known to give voice to the lives of the women living in the Winterveld and Hammanskraal communities, as well as documenting the history of South Africa at large.  The brief to the designers and embroiderers was to produce interpretations of stories they would want to share with their children and their children’s children, becoming a tangible record of their storytelling ability for future generations. The resulting cloths in the Fabricating Fables series are a delightful mix of well-known children’s stories and the artists’ own inventions, sprinkled with cameos, incidents and memories from their lives. The works blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality, placing each artist in the position of creator, narrator and archivist.