Stitching Heritage Series: Khoisan Leather Workshop

Stitching Heritage: Khoisan Leather Practice (Opening Workshop)

Join us for the opening workshop of the Stitching Heritage series by Cape Town Stitch to Resist, a creative, hands-on gathering where craft, cultural memory, and storytelling come together as a practice of reflection, connection, and restoration.

This first workshop centres Khoisan leather practice, grounding the series in the indigenous heritage of the Cape. Guided by cultural practitioner Bradley van Sitters (Danab !Huni!nâ), participants will engage with leather as both material and meaning, exploring how making can hold memory, identity, and relationship to place.

Palestinian artist Mai El Shaer joins us as a guest speaker, speaking to her practice and the weight it carries: memory, displacement, and the act of making as a way to survive it.

She and Bradley van Sitters, as guest speakers, will be sharing Palestinian and Khoisan heritage, while we guide you through slow making, tatreezing the cypress tree, a symbol of resilience, into leather, hand by hand.

Through guided making and dialogue, we create space to reconnect with layered histories and living cultural knowledge that continue to shape Cape Town today.

What to expect:

Participants will be guided through a fully hands-on process using leathercraft tools and techniques, including:

• Introduction to Khoisan cultural heritage and storytelling traditions
• Exploring the interconnectedness of local and global struggles, including reflections on Palestine and other contexts, through craft and material storytelling
• Skills development: Learn how to stitch a Tatreez inspired motif onto leather
• Engage in reflective dialogue space exploring identity, land, and cultural memory

Pricing & Accessibility

This workshop follows a cross-subsidised model to ensure accessibility and sustainability:

• Early Bird Rate
• Standard Contribution Rate
• Pay-It-Forward - voluntary contributions that directly support community access seats and help sustain the wider Stitching Heritage programme (this is not a ticket to the event)
• Community Access - free access reserved for participants who would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints. This may include individuals who are unemployed, students without income,those supporting dependents with limited household income, anyone who the workshop fee is currently inaccessible.

No documentation is required, this is based on trust and self-selection

The Khoisan workshop opens a wider series exploring heritage through textile and craft traditions including Shweshwe, Indonesian Batik, Indian Block Print, and Janubi Tatreez, each offering a different entry point into cultural memory, identity, and social connection.

Come as you are and take part in a collective process of making, remembering, and reimagining heritage through craft.