Abongile Ntsane

Abongile Ntsane was born in Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape, and during her time at Victoria Girls High School in Grahamstown she took up art as a subject and ceramics as a medium. She continued with ceramics at Port Elizabeth Technikon (now Nelson Mandela University) where she experimented with other mediums but eventually returned to using clay.

As she puts it, “I enjoy that clay is such a tactile and interactive medium. There is something about the smell and the honesty of clay that always fascinates me. I love that clay has a memory!”

Abongile sees clay as a powerful medium as it gives her the ability to mould it into anything she can envision. Clay also inspires her more because she is working with earth from her native land.

Her passion led her into joining forces with a group of other black creatives in Cape Town in the formation of Imiso Ceramics, in an attempt to deal with the lack of visibility of black creatives in the city.

Over time Abongile felt it was time to move on and explore other things, following her intuition to embark on the next journey, which resulted in the birth of Udakatribe.

“Udakatribe was birthed out of the desire to tell the African narrative through clay. As a people of such a rich continent, it is necessary for us to tell our story ourselves. We are a beautiful people – our dress, jewellery, languages, music, our dancing, community spirit, wisdom as well as our power – these all are part what inspires her creativity. Udakatribe is an Arts & Craft Institute where the use of clay is used as a healing and educational tool. Abongile aims to build a legacy and improve the lives of fellow Africans through this process.