Abstract
One of the most renowned tapestry ventures in South Africa is the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke's Drift, initiated in 1963. Less well-known is the subsequent centre started by its Swedish founders, Ulla and Peder Gowenius, in neighbouring Lesotho. Thabana li Mele, as this initiative was called, opened in 1968, and within two years, 200 villagers wove a range of textiles, including pictorial tapestries. However, this thriving operation would be short-lived, forced to close in 1970, by an ally of white South Africa, Lesotho's Leabua Jonathan regime. Apartheid-era writings have offered limiting representations of these events, and Thabana li Mele's weavers and their works are now all but forgotten. As the author shows, The blood-sucker bird (1969), a tapestry from this centre on which some material has survived, suggests that Thabana li Mele was destined to be more than just a poverty-alleviation initiative. Woven by an unknown woman, this bold artwork articulates Lesotho's subaltern status as a land-locked labour reserve for South Africa's mines. Reminiscent of oral art forms, its symbolic language interrogates the hegemonies that engineered the lives of Basotho communities forced into migrancy and economic dependency on South Africa. The tapestry also yields insight into the creative agency of a marginalised community.
Highlights
During The Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift (Figure 1), was initiated in KwaZulu-Natal in 1963 by two Swedish art graduates, Ulla and Peder Gowenius, who established an ambitious tapestry-weaving1 workshop at this remote rural hamlet (Figure 2)
Intended as a means of funding their other training courses at the centre, this would become an income-generator and creative outlet for local isiZuluspeaking women who worked at the looms. The impact of this tapestry-weaving venture would be felt at other centres in Southern Africa
Founded by the Goweniuses in 1968, it aimed to provide a subsistence for destitute communities in this landlocked, peripheral country, where poverty compelled nearly 30 per cent of its men to work on the mines in neighbouring South Africa
Summary
During The Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift (Figure 1), was initiated in KwaZulu-Natal in 1963 by two Swedish art graduates, Ulla and Peder Gowenius, who established an ambitious tapestry-weaving workshop at this remote rural hamlet (Figure 2). The impact of this tapestry-weaving venture would be felt at other centres in Southern Africa.. The impact of this tapestry-weaving venture would be felt at other centres in Southern Africa.2 One of these was Thabana li Mele, Rorke’s Drift’s little-known sister initiative in Lesotho (Figure 3). A figurative tapestry made at the centre, The blood-sucker bird (1969), was sent to Sweden for public display (Figure 4). This all but forgotten work, which I argue is loaded with political inference, is the focus of my study.
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