The EVERYWOMAN Project - Part 1

The story behind the epic artwork created by the women of Cape Town. A joint initiative between WOMAN ZONE and ARTSCAPE

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN: In 2016 WOMAN ZONE and ARTSCAPE marked the 60th anniversary of the  Women's March of 1956 with their annual Women's Humanity Walk in Cape Town on August 9th, now known as Women's Day.
While several thousand women walked symbolically in unity from the Iziko Slave Lodge at the top of Adderly Street down to the Artscape plaza, CEO Marlene le Roux and a few others travelled on a truck decorated with metres and metres of shweshwe fabric donated expressly for the purpose by manufacturers Da Gama Textiles. 

And the project....

...took to the streets.

Da Gama kindly donated 100's of metres of fabric, in a rainbow of colours and designs. But to decorate our truck and make a giant rosette, we only used a few...so what were we to do with the fabric leftover?

Well Sis' Thoko Ntshinga had a good idea, 'Make a patchwork quilt!' she said.

So we took our cloth....

...and went to see the specialists at the Craft Design Institute, where we met the magic Mara Fleischer...

....and at her suggestion, the yo-yo was born. 'Little gathered roundels of fabric. Use a CD as a template - easy!' she said.

So the next step...

...was to get all hands on deck...

...we had workshop...

...after workshop...

...all over! In our Women's Library at Artscape, at a school, an old age home, at the Craft Design Institute, in Langa, Muizenberg, Bo-Kaap...even in the kitchen...

We got transported by MLT, talked, laughed, sewed, drank a lot of tea and had a lot of fun...

And made...

...of...

...a lot...

...friends.

And the yo-yo's started...to multiply!

We strung them together, covered walls, turn some into badges, bagged others...

Of course there were some royal performers...

...and even Wire Woman...

...and kept the scraps.

...like Khayelitsha yo-yo queens Jennipher and Angelique...

...got dressed for the part!

SO WHAT'S THE NEXT STEP: Well four years later and during lockdown, we did some adding up to find we had nearly 4000 yo-yo's. Time to complete this project! And with Artscape's 50th  birthday on the horizon, here was our excuse... but we had to act fast...

​

pWe invited the Magic Mara to come back on board as designer-project manager. She linked us up  with the education team at the  at Zeitz MOCAA....and well - look out for Part 2 of The EVERYWOMAN PROJECT to see what happened next. To find out more meantime, check facebook pages: The EVERYWOMAN PROJECT CAPE TOWN or WOMAN ZONE Cape Town, or contact us on info@womanzonect.co.za. xx

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