00:00Nandipam Tambal wanted to be a forensic scientist but ended up sculpting ghosts
00:05from cowhide. The thing that happened to me is that I had a dream of a whole lot
00:10of cows and what was left over was their skins. So my father who's now passed used
00:18to be a Methodist bishop and so I called my dad I was like oh dad you know we've
00:24got to look for some cowhides and he was like what and you know as as kind of
00:30loving and generous as he was at that time he literally was driving me around
00:34Cape Town looking for cowhides not knowing what exactly I was going to do with them.
00:39That dream became the spark for Nandipa. This Eswatini born artist is turning
00:45animal skins into powerful statements on identity and femininity. You know I think
00:51for me especially with the cowhide it was more of a universal connector rather
00:56than a very African or southern African sort of question that I was dealing with
01:02because every civilization all over the world actually has some kind of
01:07connection to or an experience of the cow.
01:17How does she confront identity norms through her
01:19productive use of animal hide?
01:21The way that I got into art was that initially I was interested in forensic
01:26science so I had enrolled in Stellenbosch and did a year of that and you know I
01:37think chemical process and how organic materials work within the chemical
01:42process has always been an interesting thing to me.
01:45Her scientific background helped her master the chemical process of working
01:51with the hide and led her to Michaelis, one of South Africa's top fine arts
01:56institutions. There cowhide became her medium and her message.
02:05The themes at that time that I was exploring were questions around mythologies and how we
02:11understand the connections between animals and humans. And I think you know as human beings there's this
02:18interesting or strange way that we always try and separate ourselves from the animalistic
02:22element of who we are.
02:25Her sculptures, moulded over mannequins of her own body, blurred the line between human and animal
02:32or ghostly forms that challenged gender norms and cultural tabus.
02:36This very kind of what felt like a sort of self-torture in a weird way you know and kind of diving into
02:46something that I had no real experience of. But then at the same time having the end product that is
02:54this beautiful, shiny, hairy, nice feeling, cosy material at the end of the day was an interesting kind of
03:08contrast to the very torturous, upsetting, beginning like process of it.
03:16Having situations where you know if it's summertime and you leave the hide for a day too long then you've got maggots.
03:24Then you know the process of cleaning a fresh cowhide is blood, fat, the smell of cow dung,
03:34the kind of musty smell of cow hair that's wet. You know it was a bit torturous when I first started.
03:42Her work didn't go unnoticed, but not always in the way she intended.
03:48There was a time when I was working exclusively in black hide and there was the perception that I was making
03:53reference to myself and other black people as monkeys.
03:57That was a time where I think because of the material and how culturally loaded it is,
04:07especially within the context of Africa and southern Africa specifically,
04:12there was the thought that I was making reference to the practice of lobola and the fact that at some point
04:19if ever I got married I would be exchanged for cows.
04:23I think those interpretations or those thought processes were very obtuse because the reality is that,
04:32like I said, it was about chemical process and understanding how organic material works.
04:38It was about the understanding of the human body as well and how perceptions of a completely hairy female body
04:48or looking object would be confrontational in a way.
04:55It wasn't about making reference to any sort of race or any particular cultural group.
05:02And then also people who are within animal rights thinking that I killed the animals myself.
05:09So it's been a few ups and downs.
05:15The zebra hide came into the picture because the way that I understand even the cowhide was centered around a color palette.
05:24So there was a time when I was working exclusively in white hide, a time when I was working exclusively in black hide.
05:31And, you know, the zebra I think for me is such an interesting animal in that each one has its kind of fingerprint or hide print that is totally different from any other.
05:44And if you see a whole herd of them, in a weird way they become a mass.
05:50So there's no way of kind of telling the difference between each animal within certain circumstances.
05:56And I think about the space of being able to sort of hide in plain sight in a way.
06:03So it's a kind of combination of many different things.
06:15A new era in her work is unfolding.
06:17Still sculpting, still confronting, still asking us to look closer.
06:22Today, Nandipa works from a newly built studio tucked behind her 100 year old home.
06:28Once servants quarters, now reclaimed for creativity.
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