STITCHING MEMORY AND BELONGING: IN CONVERSATION WITH SHAMILLA AASHA

Shamilla Aasha (Hwange, 1977) is a Zimbabwean artist and educator based in Bulawayo, whose practice unfolds at the intersection of painting, textile art, and mixed-media experimentation. Her work is distinguished by a richly layered and deeply symbolic visual language through which she explores themes of cultural identity, spirituality, memory, and the condition of women in contemporary Zimbabwe. Trained at the Bulawayo School of Art & Design, where she earned a Diploma in Textile Design in 2000, Aasha has developed an artistic practice that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, moving fluidly between painting, embroidery, assemblage, textile installation, and soft sculpture. Central to her research is the reclaiming of textile as a space of storytelling and cultural transmission — a process that gained renewed prominence in her work from 2018 onward, shaped by reflections on her multicultural identity as a woman of Shona and Indian heritage raised in the Matabeleland region.

Her works are dense with traces, stitching, layered surfaces, and recurring patterns that evoke both personal and collective genealogies. Through fabric, thread, and sewing patterns, the artist constructs an autonomous visual vocabulary in which the act of stitching acquires a ritualistic and meditative dimension. Materials are layered and transformed into symbolic devices that Aasha herself describes as “sacred objects” — sites where memory, trauma, and resilience converge and settle. Within this framework, textile becomes far more than a simple support or decorative element; it transforms into body and archive of identity. Aasha’s practice deliberately resists rigid categorisation, oscillating between abstract painting, material collage, contemporary tapestry, and installation art. This formal fluidity reflects a broader investigation into processes of cultural hybridity and the tensions between tradition and contemporaneity, the individual and the collective, spirituality and the political sphere.

Active on both the local and international art scenes since the late 2000s, Shamilla Aasha has participated in numerous exhibitions and art fairs across Africa and Europe. Among her most significant projects is the solo presentation Tomorrows/Today, presented in 2023 at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair with First Floor Gallery Harare. She also participated in the 2022 and 2023 editions of Artissima, further consolidating her presence within the international contemporary art landscape. In 2024, her solo exhibition To Those Who Came Before Me was organised by First Floor Gallery Harare.

Today, Shamilla Aasha stands out as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary African art, developing a practice that intertwines poetic and political reflection on the female body, belonging, and the processes of cultural transmission.

When did you understand that you wanted to become an artist?

When I think back on where it all began, I don’t remember a significant eureka moment. I do remember always being creative because it was my safe space. There was an awareness that this was a significant part of me. When I applied to art school, I didn’t have a plan B! Throughout my career there have been diverging points, but I didn’t stray too far. When I left formal teaching, I fully committed to my journey as an artist. Art helped me and continues to help me find my place in the world.

What does it mean to you to make art?

Making art now means engaging with the internal while making connections to the external. I trained as a textile designer, which translates to a present-day surface designer, so I see patterns everywhere. This was terrible when I started as a fine artist because the impulse to add decorative elements to my work would happen unconsciously. Fast forward to my current practice I realize that in my work I’m constantly looking at the undercurrent of intangible patterns that create the rhythms we live by. I believe everything is connected and it’s in these points of intersection or connection whether intentional or unintentional, forced or aligned that through making art, help me to understand how we engage with ourselves and the environment both internal and external.

After practicing painting for a long time, you have chosen the textile medium as a language to express yourself. What are the reasons for this choice? What are the characteristics of the textile -technical and/or conceptual – that have for this choice?

I enjoy the materiality of the textiles; I find it easy to build connections and create metaphors and build symbolism around the fabric. It forms our second skin and extended from that, it’s the fabric of society.it symbolizes the ties that can bind us together or keep us separated. I also enjoy the flexibility it gives in that I can choose to deconstruct and reconstruct as required or select objects for their characteristics and use them in true form.

I haven’t left painting completely, the textile work has influenced my current body of painting significantly as I’m working much more slowly, with a more linear quality.

The stitching and weaving /crocheting is evolving ….im trying to weave connections and explore these areas of intersection, while highlighting these spaces as the most exciting and interesting points because they are often spaces of evolution if we open to the experiences.

Where does the inspiration and the ideas for your work come from/and how much is there in each of them?

I am very curious about human behavior and how spiritual and cultural practices affect behaviorism. I’m interested in how humans engage with each other and how we build/inherit our identities and collective memories within communities. I am interested in finding the unacknowledged female voice that contributed to the building of our histories – Herstories.

I often feel like a private investigator and will do weeks of research before I start the physical work. I have come to realize that the untold herstories are often hidden in a novel in the fiction section, so I’ve started reading the works of female writers in Zimbabwe. I generally try to find myself within the project. as in I try to find reference points to my experiences that echo in a project.

Your works combine old and new pictorial canons and weaving skills, found objects and abstract embroidery: a mix that removes your artwork from any classification. How would you define your artworks? And what do you tell through them?

I have no clue how I would define them!

I’m grateful to an extent that I am not formally trained in fiber or textile artist, I have the privilege of not knowing what rules there are, so in a sense it takes that pressure off what I should or should not do, I can focus on sourcing materials that truly resonate with what I’m trying to visualize. And in the actual production of work, I can experiment without the niggly feeling that I’ve broken some golden rule. I enjoy the moments I have with my work, and I hope that when people look at it, they can experience a fraction of the pure joy I feel working.

The work is conversations about how I feel about cultural practices such as one work which spoke to the paying of bride prices especially in my blended Shona/Indian culture, and the inherent conflict that arises within as you try to respect cultural practices, but they are not to your benefit as a woman. In my exhibition Breathing time, I spoke about the re-domestication of women during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and as a woman trying to find the time to Be, in a very confined space.

It feels like to me I’m working from the center outward as I address issues of the spirit and in the intangible world and coming into the physical world with a much stronger voice than before. what the pandemic has done for me is made me sit with myself and that sitting become the work Breathing Time. Now it feels like I have found my voice and I’m currently working on projects that address objection and commodification of the African female body the male gaze in the visual arts in Zimbabwe.

How does your multicultural background influence your artwork and research?

Well, I believe it influences every aspect of my life because that is how I am in the world. it allows me to see the multiplicity/duality in everything. I feel there’s another story or point of view that isn’t always obvious at first glance, so this is the filter that I process information and translate in my work. You’ll rarely find a single layer of paint or fabric or stitching…. there are always layers.

I know that you are committed to supporting creativity, in your experience what are the difficulties that young talents must face especially if they are girls, in their expressive work? And what difficulty did you face as a woman artist?

Aside from the difficulties that are faced generally young talents, lack of traditional materials*, safe space to create, and limited access to a well-rounded arts education. Young female creatives have the added complication of not having safe spaces to learn that they have a voice that can contribute to telling their stories of the times they are living. I believe the inability to contribute to the present narratives will mean that their stories as womxn will continue to be shared in hushed tones and that those that are recorded will be narratives that are filtered through a well-established patriarchal system.

I believe that young girls should be taught to speak to power, I think it’s an aspect that is often overlooked in art workshops, and it is common place find that they will produce work for the male gaze because there is a general lack of awareness of the male gaze as a concept and added to that they are either being facilitated by males or curated by males.

I have faced these challenges in one form or another at different stages of my practice, and I am thankful for great female mentorship and guidance to get through it.

*I don’t think that it’s a problem with materials, necessity is the mother of invention, and I’m all for using unconventional materials especially if they are accessible and sustainable.

In your opinion, can art help to awaken consciences to raise awareness of contemporary instances and challenges even in such difficult times? And what is the role of the artist today, in your opinion?

I wish I could confidently say Yes, my fingers are stilled crossed for that moment. I suspect that as we move into the digital age, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, images will become more influential.

Having said that I watched with sadness as artists were not included on the list for essential services during each wave of the pandemic and yet I’d like to believe it was artists who kept people sane whether in the form of books, music, movies art….so I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

I think the role of artists should be the barometer of a society, it should reflect the times that they live in. this is ideal, and often depends on the levels of freedom of speech. In situations where it is limited voices of the artist should ring louder.

What are you working on right now and what are your plans for the future?

The embroidery and soft sculpture practice – that’s where my creative energy flows most deeply this season. The paintings allow space for the conceptual work to develop, giving me time to move through ideas and clarify my thinking. My paintings create the safe space, the embroidery extends an invitation into that space, and soft sculpture embodies the space itself – the cocoon.

Now that this framework is solidifying, I want future works to investigate what happens to women in safe spaces and how my practice can both create and hold those spaces.

My recent project Sorority ignited something in me, and I’m drawn to follow that thread deeper. Over the years I’ve gathered countless fragments and materials, and the moment feels right to integrate everything. I’m approaching the work through “everything but the kitchen sink” – thinking about relocation, belonging and memory as metaphors for the choices we make about what persists and what releases when we step into a new season.