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Bulumko Mbete was born in 1995 on a Saturday. So reads the first line of the artist’s biography. This dry fact that reveals little about the artist is fitting given Mbete’s interest in ordinary stories, or more specifically, how stories are shaped and carried across generations through domestic materials. While her own family archives of photographs and oral histories are the starting point for much of her work, the artist traces connections between small, everyday narratives and larger movements in South African history.
One aspect of Mbete’s artistic practice involves the transformation of Aranda blankets (also known as iTshali), into sculptural forms and wall hangings that incorporate beading, weaving and stitching. The process begins with wetting the blanket to open the fibres so that they are able to receive the wood glue or floor sealant, allowing the blanket to be shaped. The shaping is an intuitive exercise and the resulting forms are abstract - a glorification of a household object that retains the contours of its use. The blankets take up to a month to dry before Mbete intervenes once again, with stitched or collaged elements and beading.
“My relationship to these blankets is connected to a memory of my grandfather. When he passed on my sister and I were given these blankets. They embody my memory of him, who he was, what he symbolises in the family. As a black, university graduate in the ‘30s, he achieved upward mobility at a time in our history when it was so difficult to attain.” She explains this from her studio at the Bag Factory, where she will be presenting new and in process work as part of Open Studios Joburg. The latter is a programme of events that enables the public to engage with artists and their work directly in their studios across the inner city.
The blankets Mbete works with are most commonly used for warmth and comfort in domestic spaces but also hold significance in marriage ceremonies and initiation practices. Through her research she has come across contradictory accounts of the origins of the blankets and other materials she works with such as Bull denim (used in Xhosa traditional attire). The information about these materials can be difficult to verify and their colonial roots complicate the narrative of their historical use and cultural symbolism.
“I’m not trying to paint an idealised picture of these materials, many of which have a violent history. Their origins and the history of their use are embedded within them, which is what I’m interested in - how these narratives come together in a material form, a domestic object. Because my family history is so diverse we draw relationships to the materials in multiple different ways and there are tensions at different points. I got to working with the blanket through my black grandfather but on my mother’s side there’s Scottish heritage which would relate to the people who brought the blankets here,” she says.
Mbete is drawn to working with textiles for tactile reasons too. She mostly works with her hands, weaving, knitting, sewing, beading and engaging in natural dyeing processes. She brings these practices into her work as a gesture towards the women in her family, for whom care is expressed through the gifting of blankets or handmade clothing. For Mbete, beading represents a channel for divination. “In my own practice, I really don’t enjoy drawing and painting. I just find there’s too much of a separation between the thing that you use and the thing that you're making a mark on.”
As the most recent recipient of the Cassirer Welz award, which encompasses a three-month residency at the Bag Factory in Fordsburg (an area known for its textile and garment manufacturing industries), Mbete plans to extend her knowledge and research into natural dyeing processes. Current experiments include dyes made from; avocado, onion, madder root and imphepho flowers, inspired by a recent workshop with artist Tinyiko Makwakwa.
Mbete is quick to acknowledge the numerous influences on her practice. She has a sustained interest in the work of other artists, fostered through her experience as an assistant to Kemang Wa Lehulere and Dineo Sheshee Bopape among other celebrated South African artists. Her brief stint as an assistant at Goodman Gallery and two years spent working at the Johannesburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF), have equipped her with a sound understanding of the complex functions of private art institutions and commercial spaces. She is also well-versed in the hustle involved in sustaining creative work, where practitioners necessarily commit to multiple projects at one time, or hold full-time positions while practising on the side in order to stay afloat financially. This too is an ‘ordinary story’, common to artists across the various studio complexes featured on the Open Studios Joburg programme, where even ‘prizewinning artists’ juggle jobs, projects and side-hustles in addition to the expectations that accompany sought-after opportunities to make and show artwork.
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