Isthunzi neNtsikelelo, 2026
Grass, beads, cement
53,5 cm x 49 cm x 45,5 cm
Artist’s Statement
Isithunzi neNtsikelelo emerged through a deeper reflection on my relationship with daily contemporary rural Zulu living. The grass broom is an object I have lived with throughout my life. I have used it within the home, watched the women in my family use it, and witnessed its presence within spaces of gathering, celebration, and spiritual engagement. It is used to sweep the sacred spaces through which we communicate with our ancestors, and I have seen it clear pathways before weddings and celebrations, preparing the ground for those being welcomed and honoured.
The act of sweeping is inseparable from the act of welcoming. It acknowledges arrival, creates space for presence, and makes way for blessing. It is concerned not only with what is removed, but with what is invited. Within this gesture, the broom prepares the path while ancestral presence accompanies it. The work understands welcome as a relationship between the visible and unseen, where preparation is met with guidance, protection, and blessing.
Positioned in a working stance, the broom appears suspended within the gesture of sweeping. Its flared fibres suggest continuous movement, as though the act of preparation remains ongoing. The concrete slab beneath it functions as a ground rather than a pedestal, anchoring the work within the physical gesture from which its meaning emerges. Hand-beaded with hundreds of red beads that (in my own understanding and experience of Zulu cultural practice) are traditionally associated with ancestral presence, makes visible the relationship already carried by the broom. The broom prepares the path; the red beads reveal the presence that walks it with us.
The title, Isithunzi neNtsikelelo, brings together Presence and Blessing as inseparable ideas. Isithunzi is understood as a living presence carried through relationships, ritual, honour, and dignity, while ntsikelelo emerges through that presence as guidance, affirmation, and blessing. Together, they reflect a way of understanding that sees presence as something that accompanies everyday life through gestures of care and preparation.
Created through a repetitive and meditative process of beading, the work became an opportunity to deepen my own understanding of traditions that continue to shape how I experience community, spirituality, cosmology, and belonging. It forms part of an ongoing engagement with the elegance and sophistication of Zulu knowledge systems, examining how everyday material culture embodies systems of knowledge, design, and aesthetic intelligence that continue to shape contemporary life.
