Meet Chuma Madeni, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.
For generations, people have met around the kitchen table to share meals, stories, and dreams with one another. Communal gatherings like these are called imbizo in the Xhosa language.
To design his table and stools on view in the exhibition, Maweni drew inspiration from across time and space, from traditional Nguni vessels, which inform his patterns, to futuristic kitchens, where communities of the past and present meet. Here, in this house, knowledge is passed in a cycle, much like the carved rings created by the turning of Maweni’s pottery wheel.
Take a virtual tour of the exhibition to explore further.