In iNgqweji, South African ceramicist Andile Dyalvane calls on us to “walk the forest barefoot, speak to our gardens, smell the herbs, and listen closely to what nature is trying to communicate.”

iNgqweji (isiXhosa for “bird’s nest”) is a five-year project by Andile Dyalvane that takes its cue from communal systems in nature — most notably the vast, shared nests of social weaver birds observed during a pilgrimage in Northern Cape. For Dyalvane, these structures became a living metaphor for collective intention, adaptability and care, principles that shaped both the exhibition and the community of collaborators involved in its making.

Presented at Southern Guild, iNgqweji brings together clay, glass, copper and sound in a series of sculptural environments informed by ancestral knowledge, landscape, and shared ritual. In the interview that follows, Dyalvane speaks about touch, sound, collaboration.

By Khaya Mnisi

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Paved: You've spoken about reawakening the senses and restoring our connection to nature. From your perspective, what are the senses or forms of awareness that modern life has caused us to neglect the most? 

Andile: My primary medium is clay, so working with one's hands becomes a portal to all other senses. Visual guides lead to inventive solves, but one has to be in the making process to really get into the maker’s flow state. 

Touching clay has been a deeply ancestral creative coding; a route or passage to primordial cohesion that helps us integrate into our environments - feeling the earth means the earth feels us. This is the foundation of working with clay that remembers every tension, impression and energetic frequency.

I would say that touch has been compromised the most in the modern day, especially with technology allowing us to experience things from afar. The beauty of working with clay, among many things, is that it keeps me grounded; it keeps me connected to the earth and to myself, and it’s all done through touch.

P: And how do you think people can begin to reconnect with those ways of sensing and knowing — not only in the exhibition space of iNgqweji, but in their everyday routines?

A: Connect with a natural material through making, be it a hobby or routine vocational activity - intention equals connection. Walk the forest barefoot, talk to your garden, smell the herbs, wonder about what it is that nature may betrying to communicate. 

Take a moment to look up from your screens and observe the world around you. Listen closely, intently, to all the layers of sound you can possibly hear - distant to close - and make a symphony for yourself with them. 

P: You’re working with glass, copper, clay, and even sound in this exhibition - and together they feel strangely natural, like they were always meant to connect. What pulled you toward these materials, especially the glass and copper?

A: In 2012, I headed out to Ngwenya Glass in the Kingdom of Eswatini to explore glass. I was curious to see how theluminance and textures of the glass would marry with the more dense-feeling clay body.

The experimentation began: glass was blown into to create acacia branches with clay thorns attached to them – this proved to be far too fragile. Then glass and clay came together in vessel forms as an exclusive collaborative collection between Imiso and Ngwenya Glass. Connected by glass nodes, clay remained the base while the glass crowned the vessel, colours swimming through like tiny fish in clear waters. This was the beginning of my long relationship and fascination with glass combining with clay. 

Copper reminds and connects me to my father and the longline of craftsmen in my family. My mother also worked with her hands, cutting patterns and sewing garments either by hand or on her Singer sewing machine. My father was a migrant metal worker in the dockyards of Cape Town's foreshore and before that, a miner on the Johannesburg mines. As a young boy, I was given access to his toolbox when he came home twice or three times a year – something that filled me with pride and happiness. And so I felt my father near in all the useful objects he made for our home, many of which I still have today.

Copper is my preferred choice of metal, forged and shaped with the energy of my being in representation of those ancestral crafting hands throughout my lineage. It is also the best conduit of electrical frequency that my collaborators and I align with. 

P: And when it came to choosing the people who helped you shape the works in multiple ways: what made you feel, ‘Yes, these are the hands I can trust with this vision’?

 A: The collaborators I align with usually happens in an organic way, and often, we've been in conversation with one another before physically meeting each other. It’s very often a meeting of compatible minds and hearts; partnerships fuelled by trust, shared vision and creative energy.

Sanusi Credo Mutwa, for some of us, has had an impact in theever-spirited way he has had the fore vision of a great coming together of different people in spirited service to humanity.  

Glass integration over the years led me to be in conversation with master glass blower David Reede, who has graciously shared his knowledge and understanding of the medium with me.

Conrad Hicks, a master blacksmith, is an artisan I have worked with before and his presence truly feels like I'm back in my father's toolbox – moments I cherished as a child and to this day. 

Dr Nkosenathi Koela and I met because of my interest being piqued in the ancestral ways of sonic healing that relies on my memories of nature. His way of working with codes of indigenous sounds within the practice of Ngoma frequencies truly shifts the ancestral paradigm to source codes gifted by nature. It was natural that we came to what iNgqweji offers to those seated in the 'Umsamo' space recreated at Southern Guild Gallery.  

P: Sound feels like a vital material in this exhibition, not just an added layer. And I’m curious: if you had to describe the sound of iNgqweji the way someone might describe a painting or sculpture in a gallery — its texture, movement, or energy — what would you say?

A: The sound scape weaves together the frequency of diligently building a home, something that my aspirations have led me to over the past few years - sounds of communal upward bird murmurings that strive toward waves of synchronicity in spirit.  A journeying energy that brings us together in our efforts to transmute what we may think is impossible to create and to make our understanding possible through the work. 

P: Watching how the social weaver birds build together — each bird doing its part but all working toward one structure — what lessons did you take from that?

A: When one is willing to tend to the work, committing to the task at hand - it benefits all. The works frequency expands and is amplified through generations, as keys to ways of being of service to each other in all we do. The beehive presents a similar lesson. Yet in offering iNgqweji, it is the home and community building with cohesive efforts that I've witnessed that teaches me. 

P: And when you were working with the other practitioners on this exhibition, how did those lessons actually show up in the way you collaborated day-to-day?

A: Respect for one another and each one's practice is crucial.  We have deep respect for our materials and ways of thinking through the tensions they present us. We meet in a place where spaciousness is explored, founded on us taking up space respectfully, something I'm exceedingly grateful for. This project unfolded over five years and pulled you into landscapes, teachings, collaborations and rituals that demanded real openness. 

P: Along the way, what part of yourself did you feel shifting — whether in how you listen, how you pay attention, or how you move through the world? 

A: Oh, this work within the clay energies is not for the faint of heart. I believe everyone attached to the making of this offering has learned something. Paying attention not only to the physical movements of the work but to one's own spirit is as important as what gets felt by recipients of this offering. Remember: clay stores memory and reads energy exactly the way nature responds. 

P: What changed in you during the making of iNgqweji? 

A: To do the work best, the practice of setting my heart in alignment with my own truth is and will forever be important.  My heart has been weaved much the same as iNgqweji - it nurtures the pulse of home - Camagu! We learn and walk together.

I think the consensus here is that Andile Dyalvane’s work in this exhibition isn’t something you merely observe. You experience it—you receive it.

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