North Gallery

Mapula Embroideries - Fabricating Fables

The Association of Arts Pretoria is proud to present ‘Fabricating Fables’, an exhibition by Mapula Embroideries.  Cate Terblanche, Manager of the Mapula Embroidery Trust, will open the exhibition on Saturday, 28 March 2026 at 11:00.  

The brief to the designers and embroiderers was to produce interpretations of stories they would want to share with their children and grandchildren, becoming a tangible record of their storytelling ability for future generations.  The resulting cloths in the Fabricating Fables series are a delightful mix of well-known children’s stories and the artists’ own inventions, sprinkled with cameos, incidents and memories from their lives.
  
The panels invite the viewer to revisit childhood stories from a new perspective, stories told through the eyes of the narrator, Mapula - the mother of rain, herself.   For Mapula Embroideries, invoking the mother of rain is more than a name.  It is a metaphor for women as nurturers, storytellers, and guardians of heritage.

Mapula Embroideries is a community art project which supports 140 women in the Hammanskraal and Winterveld areas.  The aim of the project is to empower the women in the Mapula community through the sale of their hand embroidered items.  The sale of the cloths in the Fabricating Fables series will directly contribute towards the sustainability of the Mapula Embroideries Trust.

Be sure to view this colourful and creative exhibition at the Association of Arts Pretoria from 28 March 2026 until 18 April 2026.