Around the Kitchen Table is a conversational space for readings, rehearsals and research as part of An Archive of the Ordinary
This series of conversations forms the focus of my three-month Research Residency at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels from September to November 2026.
At the heart of these gatherings is the tablecloth (pictured) that I have been working on as a method of recuperating the stories of growing up under apartheid, and which testifies to a life lived under oppression. The textiles added to the cloth include an apron worn by my mother and embroidered with the names of dishes prepared by her and my grandmothers, a doiley crocheted by my grandmother, and handkerchiefs stitched with sayings no longer used today. The objects have been touched by the hands and bodies of women who had little of monetary belonging, and yet they are imprinted with a sense of belonging. The cloth, dyed with turmeric as a reference to the enslavement of forebears who were brought to the Cape by the Dutch, facilitates remembering beyond the confines of a colonial archive.
