Telephone Wire weaving
Recently in South Africa in the zulu community the weavers have started to use other materials to create the baskets - Telephone wire. This new material is very colourful and durable making it ideal for basket weaving. It started out with when the South African Government was planning a new telephone service project in the area and had many left over coils of wire. Therefore, the zulus took the wire and started making new designs and patterns with the new wide range of colours.
When they ran out of the wire they started digging up telephone lines that ran underground until the government told them to stop and supplied them with new wire. This discovery made weaving baskets a lot easy because of the availability and the durability of the products.
This project is no supporting over 500 families of weavers as these baskets started to go global and are now selling in their own shops in other countries including England. The weavers also receive new patterns that would be popular to the more moderns buyers.
This a TED talk about how it all started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyAP4zLb6w
This project is no supporting over 500 families of weavers as these baskets started to go global and are now selling in their own shops in other countries including England. The weavers also receive new patterns that would be popular to the more moderns buyers.
This a TED talk about how it all started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyAP4zLb6w