Meet Zizipho Poswa, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.
Zizipho Poswa's sculpture Noxolo references a magodi, a traditional African hairstyle, which she associates with memories of her aunt—after whom she named the piece.
The bowls stacked atop the piece evoke hair piled high on Noxolo’s head, and the bowls on the side reference her fondness for twisting and wrapping her hair into Bantu knots.
The massive work was not formed on a pottery wheel but was gathered, coiled, pinched, and smoothed, using precise movements akin to those necessary for realizing the hairstyles they represent.
Noxolo is part of Poswa’s Magodi series of large-scale, three-dimensional abstract portraits inspired by the community of women that raised her.
Take a virtual tour of the exhibition to explore further.
