The Keiskamma Art Project Launches Its First Homeware Collection

The Keiskamma Art Project adds a vibrant new energy around art-inspired interiors with their new homeware collection at AAFRICAA concept store. Stitched, A Story of Our Home features a small collection of cushion covers and table textiles made by Eastern Cape guest master crafters, Nozibele Nxadi and Anelisa Nyongo from the art collective.

Tranquil nature scenery crafted uniquely for the home

This new printed homeware collection is a quintessentially African scene. It depicts a rich landscape of trees, lush vegetation and birds such as Grey Herons and Little Egrets who feature prominently in the Keiskamma River Estuary in Hamburg. On offer is a line that features cushion covers, tablecloths, tea towels and napkins. The artisans at Keiskamma Art Project rendered the scenery and visuals in the collective’s signature embroidery style.

Last year, wallpaper label Cara Saven Wall Design collaborated with Keiskamma Art Project on one of the group’s first foray into interior design. The team allowed the embroidery style of the KAP artists to be expressed as a printed wallpaper showing a tranquil nature scene. The wallpaper design features in-store as a backdrop to the collection of homeware products and can be purchased online via carasaven.com.

“AAFRICAA is a curated retail platform for contemporary African brands and designers with an emphasis on the hand work of artisans,” says AAFRICAA manager, Xola Xanti. “So, we are really excited at having the Clout/Keiskamma range of homeware textiles and welcoming Nozibele Nxadi and Anelisa Nyongo to our launch.

More about The Keiskamma Art Project

With a creative practice spanning over 20 years, The Keiskamma Art Project has produced major embroidered textile artworks made by the mainly rural women and men of Hamburg in the Eastern Cape. The collective continues to share their stories and experiences by bringing to visual life the oral history tradition of the Eastern Cape.

Three artists from the project, namely Anelisa Nyongo, Nozibele Nxadi, and lead artist and production manager Cebo Mvubu, have lent their skills and their particular aesthetic to this design collection.

“Sometimes there’s the fear that if you mass produce or digitally print original textile artwork, there’s going to be a loss of quality, or that you will lose the aura and the spirit of the work, but this hasn’t been the case with this collaboration,” explains Michaela Howse, manager of Keiskamma Art Project. “It actually supports the original creativity and mystique. Tracy and Clout/SA get Hamburg and they get the Keiskamma Art Project and there hasn’t been even a glimmer of exploitation or self-interest. It’s been pure passion and excitement for Hamburg and the work of the Keiskamma Art Project.”