MagazineDiscover Zizipho Poswa's Stunning Ceramic SculpturesAD's Newest One to Watch tells her story from Cape Town

By Hannah Martin

Photography by Jody Brand

January 20, 2022

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“This collection talks about the load that women carry—the baskets, the firewood, the baby,” artist Zizipho Poswa explains of her colossal new ceramic sculptures, examples of which appeared at Design Miami this past December. Titled Umthwalo, the colorful, vaguely figurative body of work, which debuted in a 2018 group show with the Southern Guild gallery, honors the strong women Poswa grew up with in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. (She is pictured at her Cape Town studio with a work in progress that will soon be slathered in orange glaze and decorated in stripes.) For more than a decade, Poswa, who has a background in textile design, made smaller, decorative pieces for Imiso Ceramics, the studio she runs with her business partner, Andile Dyalvane, a fellow artist. But these large-scale, hand-built creations have shown more narrative possibility for Poswa, who infuses them with references to her Xhosa culture. The iLobola series, for example, features bronze horns that symbolize cows, once paid as a dowry to unite two families through marriage. The Magodi collection, meanwhile, celebrates the artistry of traditional African hairstyles. An example of the latter, based on Bantu knots, now sits in the Afrofuturist period room at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. And more are bound for a solo exhibition with Southern Guild later this year. She says, “Through these works I’m telling my story about who I am and where I come from.” southernguild.co.za