Managing Mapula: Defining Markets for an Embroidery Project in Post-Apartheid

South Africa

 

by

Brenda Schmahmann

 

Mapula (meaning “mother of rain”), which was initiated in 1991, is an embroidery project located in the Winterveldt region in South Africa.  Members of Soroptomists International started Mapula, in co-operation with the Sisters of Mercy, who made available a classroom at the Nthathe Adult Education Centre as a venue for the project.  As with other needlework projects initiated in South Africa prior to 1994, Mapula was envisaged as a potential remedy for the severe economic difficulties experienced by black women in an apartheid context. But Mapula has in fact not only sustained itself but also offered support to a greater number of women in recent years. An increased awareness of the need to include works by women in corporate and public collections, and to curate exhibitions representative of South Africa’s diverse population, has been simultaneous with a growth in South Africa’s tourist industry.  Marketing strategies have involved a complex negotiation between defining the embroideries as unique objects of aesthetic value and items which manifest technical skill but are essentially ‘products’ rather than objects of interest to an ‘art’ collector. While presented in some contexts as signifiers of individual creativity, and thus worthy of inclusion in prestigious collections, the embroideries are also marketed as affordable items via retail outlets and popular outdoor markets. A drive to encourage women to select imagery that might tally with their own experiences has been coupled with a focus on using images and forms identified as likely to appeal to buyers looking for mementoes of the country.

 

Brenda Schmahmann is Professor and Head of the Department of Fine Art at Rhodes University in South Africa.  Her Ph.D. in art history was received from the University of Witwaterstrand in South Africa.  She has curated a widely travelled exhibition of the work of South African needlework collectives, directed a video on Weya women’s appliquÈs, and is author of Material Matters: AppliquÈs by the Weya Women of Zimbabwe and Needlework by South African Collectives.  Her articles have appeared in The South African Journal of Cultural and Art History, De Arte, Acta Varia, and the Women’s Art Journal.