Solo show
Billie Zangewa: Thread for a Web Begun
20 Oct 2021 — 27 Feb 2022 at Museum of the African Diaspora
· San Francisco
Thread for a Web Begun brought together a body of work by Malawian-born, Johannesburg-based artist Billie Zangewa at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco in 2021.
Zangewa is celebrated for her hand-stitched silk collages, in which she pieces together fragments of raw silk to construct intimate scenes drawn from her own life — domestic interiors, moments of tenderness, and quiet acts of self-affirmation. The works place Black womanhood and the rhythms of daily existence at their center, transforming the personal into a quietly radical political statement.
The exhibition title, drawn from a line of poetry, evokes the patient, cumulative labor of Zangewa's practice: each tapestry is built thread by thread, image by image, into a larger, luminous whole.
Zangewa is celebrated for her hand-stitched silk collages, in which she pieces together fragments of raw silk to construct intimate scenes drawn from her own life — domestic interiors, moments of tenderness, and quiet acts of self-affirmation. The works place Black womanhood and the rhythms of daily existence at their center, transforming the personal into a quietly radical political statement.
The exhibition title, drawn from a line of poetry, evokes the patient, cumulative labor of Zangewa's practice: each tapestry is built thread by thread, image by image, into a larger, luminous whole.
About the artist
Billie Zangewa
1973
Billie Zangewa is a Malawian artist who hand sews silk fabrics to create collage tapestries, and who now lives in Johannesburg. Since 2004, her art has been featured in international exhibitions including the Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris.
About the artist →About the venue
Museum of the African Diaspora
· San Francisco
The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Located at 685 Mission St. and occupying the first three…
