Returning to The Source

World-recognised South African installation artist and sculptor Simphiwe Buthelezi – whose work challenges perceived oppositions between tradition and modernity, considering instead how ancient knowledge systems might offer frameworks for contemporary life – debuts her first solo exhibition, Kala, at Southern Guild.

WORDS Palesa Mohola PHOTOS Lea Crafford and Nanje Nowack/Courtesy of Southern Guild

As the recipient of Southern Guild’s international residency programme in Cape Town, the GUILD Residency, Simphiwe Buthelezi will present her solo exhibition at the gallery.

Born in Johannesburg, Simphiwe is a sculptor and installation artist whose rise in the art scene began in 2018, when she was awarded the Blessing Ngobeni Art Prize, which led to a residency at The Bag Factory Artist Studios in Johannesburg. Her work has been exhibited around the world, with her wider exhibition history including presentations in Kinshasa, DRC, and Miami, USA.

Her work is rooted in material exploration, cultural continuity, African spirituality and processes of self-discovery. She works with natural materials, including ‘icansi‘ (traditional hand-woven reed mats), glass beads, ‘tankrali‘ (Zulu seed beads), sea sand, seashells and metal. To retain their agency and sculptural integrity, she avoids bright paint, opting instead for natural, earthy tones and letting the materials lead her work.

“My work is always in dialogue with the sacredness of the reed mat,” Simphiwe says. “It fascinates me how a single object can unravel and transform into many forms – just like the people to whom it belongs: boundless, adaptable, enduring.”

She uses a creative process closely related to a practice called ‘ukubuyela e masisweni‘ – or ‘returning to the source’ – an existential and spiritual undertaking through which intergenerational materials become vessels for cultural memory, ancestral knowledge and new forms of meaning.

For Kala, whose isiZulu translation is ‘weigh it’ or ‘measure it’, Simphiwe made two works:

Mhlaba is the focal form for the exhibition’s central themes. It is a monumental sphere whose surface is layered with tactile constellations built from cut segments of ‘icansi‘, traditional mats hand-woven from ‘iNcema‘ bulrushes – a material that extends beyond its everyday function, as the mats are not only used in domestic contexts but are also used in ceremonies and rituals across South Africa. The artwork appears neither complete nor intact, looking as if suspended in a state between formation and erosion.

The Abacus is an extensive wall-hung installation made from ebonised, handmade clay beads that shift across a series of open contour lines. Released from the confines of the abacus’s conventional four-sided boundary, the instrument becomes mutable and porous, exposed to forces of motion, time, deduction and addition – transforming an ancient tool of calculation into a distorted meditation on what cannot be counted.

“Ultimately, Kala asks not how we measure the world, but what we choose to measure. It invites an alternative currency of value; one rooted in attention, care, and the belief that making remains a vital way of processing the conditions of the present,” says Simphiwe.

Kala will be on show at the GUILD Residency, Silo 5, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, from 18 September to 12 November 2026. | southernguild.com

Don’t forget to sign up to our weekly newsletter for the latest architecture and design news.