Earthwide Edition: Weaving Makenge Basket in Zambia
We are excited to introduce our Earthwide Edition: Zambia Collection in September 2023. While we are working on creating these pieces, we would love to take you on a journey and tell you a bit more about how special is this craft.
Basket-making tradition
Baskets. All around the globe, there are different basket-making traditions rooted in their use and what materials are available. Often baskets can be perceived as something rustic and ready-made: a quick fix to transporting or storing things.
In Europe, we find a lot of willow baskets or split wood weaving, and further south, there are straw and finer materials. But the true art of fine basketry is mastered on the African continent, with a wide variety of materials and techniques refined over centuries.
I came across some gorgeous, silky golden Makenge baskets on a stand at a fair and was immediately enchanted. It turned out these baskets were coiled from the root of the Makenge bush in a refugee camp in Zambia. The idea that this community of displaced women can create and refine their skills and personal expression in such a refined manner appealed to me immediately.
To give a little background:
For these baskets, the roots of a Makenge bush have to be harvested, but only a part of the roots can be taken to allow the bush to grow. With utmost sensitivity for the environment and plant, these women dig and harvest the root, which is peeled and cleaned to make this golden fiber for weaving.
For our Zambia collection, we worked with local UN partners to communicate and pay the women from the camps.
To communicate shape and precision (to make the baskets fit the other parts of the design), the weavers were provided with paper templates onto which they would fit their weaving. Each woman was told to make a pattern she liked but stick to the shape and size required.
It takes a weaver about one week to make one basket.
It is a slow and laborious process and one in which the signature of the maker is evident. No basket is alike! The final touch for a Utopia & utility basket was the rim, which allows the basket to locate on the other material it will be combined with (as we are all about material contrast).
The pieces created in collaboration with Zambia and European artisans will be available to purchase in September 2023. We are looking forward to sharing it with the world.
Pieces are available in limited quantity for PRE-ORDER. Contact us to order.