Join curator Kirsten Heckterman for a guided tour of A Thread Through Time.

Kirsten was born in Kenya where she first met Dhahabu Ngambau Dadu through her husband Ngala, who worked with Kirsten’s father.

Dhahabu’s tribe is Giriama and she lives north of Mombasa. As a girl growing up in humble surroundings Dhahabu’s parents were unable to afford the schooling that was rarely a priority for girls, and she never learnt to read or write.

Similarly, Dhahabu has never received formal training in embroidery or craft, and whilst Kirsten has taught her to sew, which for many years was based around 45 CMS squares of local calico cloth, she has never influenced or guided her designs but has only talked about spaces in-between and variations in thickness of threads. Dhahabu instinctively creates her designs with embroidery threads and fabrics periodically sent to her by Kirsten since they began working together. More recently Dhahabu has returned to using basic locally milled Kenyan cloth that she started first out with. 

In 2012 Dhahabu’s work was exhibited for the first time at the Centre for Recent Drawing in London, and more recently in Japan in 2019 and then in London in June 2022 at Retrouvius. Since her first exhibition Dhahabu’s style has continued to develop and evolve, incorporating new techniques and stitches taught to her by Kirsten on her visits to Kenya. As Dhahabu’s work evolves, it remains visually evocative and entirely uncontrived.

This talk is free, we kindly ask that you register below.