What does being awarded Monocle's Best New Talent mean to you at this stage of your career?
I think more than anything, it's cool to be acknowledged on an international scale because I'm relatively new. I mean, I've been doing things in South Africa, but relatively new in the design space on an international platform. It's nice to be seen and recognized. I would say it's encouraging to me that I'm on the right path. As you can imagine, it hasn't been a very easy year, even last year with business and with anything. Everyone's just been going through a lot. So it's given me the motivation to keep going.
On that note, how have you been navigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on your work?
Luckily, I don't have an office or anything like that. I've always been working virtually. The artisans who I work with at the weavery – I work with two weaveries – are a small group of women in a rural setting, so in terms of the COVID-19 rules, they were able to still continue. So in terms of production, it didn't affect us so much. But I think in terms of buyers, I think a lot of people have been a little bit insecure about consuming stuff because they're so uncertain. People have lost their jobs so it hasn't been an easy time for sales. However, I think it's getting better now.
Your Sankara Rug won the "Most Beautiful Item" at the 2017 Design Indaba. Did this accolade help grow your footprint in the textile industry in any way?
I think with the publicity around it, yes. Of course, more people found out about me through that way so in terms of the publicity and informing people about me, it was very good in that regard. I think a lot of people appreciate Design Indaba but I have issues with Design Indaba and that's why I'm struggling to answer this question.
Sankara Rug, "Most Beautiful Item"Still taken via Design Indaba YouTube video.
Tell us about some of those issues.
Well, on the one hand, I think it was a really cool platform for your work to be seen, but in a way, I felt like I was just starting out and I was still pretty new in the whole design space. Design Indaba says I have the most beautiful object in South Africa but I don't actually win anything. It's not like they were giving me mentoring or 100 gigabytes of data. It was just like, "Here, you won." It's just a title. You know what I mean?
But then that title comes with a lot and a lot of people probably think that you are in a position where you can supply 100 rugs to a hotel. So in a way, I feel like if your design is called the most beautiful object, there should be some kind of appropriate reward. I don't know, perhaps I won too early but for me, I was just starting out and it proved to be challenging to live up to it basically.
That's definitely a conversation that's ongoing in terms of what awards mean outside of the publicity that they may carry. I want to talk about the Ndebele pattern in your work. What about it struck you so much that it became an entire project with your rugs?
The first collection was that, but it's evolved a lot and I am trying out different things now. My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother are Ndebele. At home, we spoke a combination of Ndebele and Zulu. I guess it is a part of me and the project was more about paying homage to the fact that I grew up with that culture, but never really gave it any recognition up until it started being recognized in the international space. I think it also says a lot about our appreciation of ourselves, who we are and how you take it for granted as a young person.
I took so many things for granted and now when I look back I'm like, "Oh, wow. Why didn't I appreciate that when I was younger?" Or I could have learned more if I had spent more time with my Ndebele grandmother instead of thinking, "Oh, what the hell is that?" So I guess it was just visiting that side of me. The initial collection was my graduate project and I was curious about working with what was coming from the African continent.
Some of Nkuli Mlangeni-Berg's work. Image supplied.
In terms of your design studio and collaborative platform, The Ninevites, why did you feel led to set that up and do you think there are enough design sites/studios like yours in South Africa at least?
There are a few. There's Thabiso Mjo of Mash T. Designs, there's The Herd, and a few other people who are doing really cool stuff. I set up Ninevites because at the time, it was my hobby project. I wanted to do fashion, but in the way that I liked doing it. And so that was the idea behind it, an alternative space that I could do the things that I liked. That's what it was mainly and it's evolved a lot to where it's now employing people is recognized on an international scale.
I think that in South Africa specifically, we've got a good number of fashion designers who are being recognized on an international scale and South Africa is doing very well. However, I would say when it comes to interior design, that's still not there yet. I would say it's still white. There aren't a lot of Black design studios that are doing homeware but it's growing, and more and more young people are doing it. More and more people are getting into the interior design space but it's still not a big space for Black people.
The weaving process in action. Image supplied.
Do you have plans of making the art/textile industries accessible to other young people who currently view it as intimidating or classist?
Together with six other South African designers, I have started the South African Designers and Artisans Imbizo because a lot of the time we're depending on these bigger institutions. So now we've decided that we want to do things on our own. We've started this collective and I am hosting an exhibition here in Sweden at the end of the month and all those designers will have their work here. It will be an exhibition as part of a design event called Southern Sweden Design Days. The work will also be sold in Sweden for a month. We're still trying to figure out a lot of things, but I think the point is to get to a place where we have ownership of this and everyone is being paid what they're supposed to be paid and not exploited – that we promote designers and artisans on an international scale.
Then there's another project that I recently did through my studio, a magazine called Lesela. Lesela, which means fabric, is about profiling textile artists from the African continent. It was done through a project called Telling Tales, which involves three other textile designers and myself from the African continent. I worked with an all-women creative team in South Africa including Lebogang Tlhako (Sista Bozza), Alexis Rose and Noncedo Gxekwa – all photographers. The essence of my company is collaboration and in all those projects, I am collaborating with really awesome people from the African continent. And I mean, I'm in a position where I'm based in Sweden and have the resources to channel back to the continent.
'Lesela' magazine. Image supplied.
You've obviously done a number of collaborations already but are there still any designers on the continent who you're really keen to work with or whose work you admire?
Oh, of course. I love Zohra Opoku's work in Ghana. I absolutely admire and love Malawian Billie Zangewa's work. I would love to spend time with the women in KZN who make all the textiles or clothing for the Shembe Church. A dream would be travelling to South Africa for a few months, spending time in the rural areas of KZN and just interning for the weavers, the ones that work with basket weaving, as well as the beaders. I'd love to go to Senegal. There's some really, really cool projects coming out of Senegal. There's also a young woman called Johanna Bramble, she's amazing. I hope that I can get a nice grant so I can travel across the continent for like a year, just interning. I would also maybe do a short documentary where I'm spending time in different countries with the artisans.
With regards to just being your authentic self, but also being on an international stage that's predominantly Eurocentric, what keeps you grounded?
I think it's that I have so much respect and love for where I come from and remembering how I grew up. I feel like South Africa is such a challenging country in terms of our history. We've been through so much. It's so crazy and wild and there are so many things but it's also such an amazing place. Knowing where I come from and what we've all been through, it can be such a mind fuck. It's like on the one hand, you're like, "Oh my God, I love this country so much." And then on the other hand, "Oh my God, this is so fucked up. There are so many horrible things that are happening with crime and gender-based violence." However, there's something about the community and the people. I think about where I come from, the streets of Kagiso, my grandmother's home and my people, downtown Joburg and the beauty, the love and the hate. I carry that with me wherever I go.
Sankara Rug, "Most Beautiful Item"Still taken via Design Indaba YouTube video. 
Some of Nkuli Mlangeni-Berg's work. Image supplied. 
The weaving process in action. Image supplied. 
'Lesela' magazine. Image supplied.
