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Mpumalanga hosts over 90 crafters at exhibition underway

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Mpumalanga is hosting over 90 crafters from the country’s nine provinces at the Beautiful Things 2022 exhibition underway at the Graskop Gorge.

The crafters are showcasing their handmade work from ceramics, beadwork, wirework, glasswork, and fabric painting, among others.

The arts industry was the hardest hit by COVD-19 and through such initiatives, there’s hope that it is slowly recovering.

One of the artists, Margaret Mahlangu, says COVID-19 has disrupted their business, and such opportunities will assist to revive them.

“My late grandmother used to do bead work. My business almost died because of COVID, people were not buying then there was no money so it was not really easy for us to get funding. I’m glad about this opportunity. Thanks so much Beautiful Things and the Department of Arts and Culture.”

The exhibition has been used to also celebrate culture and diversity in the country. The exhibition’s curator, John Anthony Boerman says the selection process was daunting.

“Out of the 2000 submissions we had to curate down to 90 works of art from around the country. We were specifically looking for original, excellence in skills and specifically looking at young people, that were involved in cultural heritage.”

Support artists

Sports, Arts and Culture Minister, Nathi Mthethwa says it is important to support the artists for the industry to recover and be able to sustain itself.

“Our artists are going to have a captured market for them to recover because that’s the important thing now you know at the time of COVID-19 we were in the grand relief mood, we are moving away from that now.”

The Beautiful Things exhibition will end next weekend at the Graskop Gorge.

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