Matri-Archive, Creativity, and Beadwork: Toward an Inclusive Design Process

This article focuses on the work of Thuli Princess Sebenzise Khoza, one of over 350 bead artists from a community-based arts and crafts project called Woza Moya, which is located in Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In this article, I use the concepts of the matri-archive, informed largely by Annalisa Piccirillo (2014), and creativity drawn from the work of Vlad Glăveanu (2011) and Glăveanu and Sierra (2015) to analyze the design and creation process for Khoza’s beaded works: the Princess earrings and Christmas tree angels. I use observations, photographs, and interviews taken over an eleven-month period to formulate the description and analysis. This study shows that conceptualization of these beaded works includes Woza Moya’s director, Paula Thomson, and marketer. Analyzing Khoza’s creation process, however, discloses how she retrieves and adapts fragments of matri-archival resources to inform her design process, as well as how she transmits knowledge by including her daughter, niece, and husband in the process. In this article, I argue that an organization such as Woza Moya employs an inclusive design process in which diverse forms of knowledges–such as those drawn from the matri-archive–are given value and appropriately incorporated into product development.