As part of its ongoing commitment to reaching out to communities and engagement with curatorial programming, the University of Pretoria (UP) Museums visited the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Centre in the remote north-western part of the Mogalakwena Reserve and to the far north to Mapungubwe National Park in the Limpopo Province. The week-long site visit was headed by Dr Sian Tiley-Nel, Head of the UP Museums, and accompanied by Uthando Baduza, Curator of Art Exhibitions & Galleries and Matsobane Steven Motena, Museum Interpretative Officer and Tourist Guide. The planned research site visits were two-pronged in purpose, as part of curatorial programming for the current exhibition Bokgabo ba Mašela: Art of Textiles, as well as a significant photographic project on the Mapungubwe Collection as specifically declared national heritage.

The UP Museums, in partnership with the UP Department of Historical and Heritage Studies (Faculty of Humanities), the UP Museums facilitated a film screening of the MA graduate and PhD candidate, Ms. Motlatjo Mobogboya’s 2024 film, Crafting a Living Heritage, supervised by Dr. Nisa Paleker, Senior Lecturer in the department. Mobogboya’s documentary centres around the stories of the Mogalakwena Art Centre women and provides a historical context for the emergence of these women's collectives more broadly. The screening at the Mogalakwena Art Centre in Limpopo was indeed a special moment, as this was the first time the women had the opportunity to see the film and themselves on film. The screening was simultaneously educational, uplifting, and heartwarming and was a great opportunity for connection.

According to the Curator of the Bokgabo ba Mašela: Art of Textiles exhibition, currently on show in the Bridge Gallery until 17 October 2025, Baduza “deliberately sought to highlight the importance of textile art and art-making within the broader contemporary art practice. The important inclusion of the Mogalakwena women’s ‘story cloths’ in the exhibition is critical as one of the key women’s collectives that are providing safe spaces for women to tell their stories and those of their community.”

The team then moved from Mogalakwena up to Mapungubwe National Park World Heritage Site, and were graciously hosted and welcomed by Mr. Trinity Tshisevhe, Senior Curator Cultural Heritage Management from SANParks. UP has had the privilege of a long-standing curatorial forum as part of a formal agreement regarding the Mapungubwe Collection and its connection to the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape. Both teams used the opportunity to discuss appropriate photographic and documentation standards and curatorial challenges around declared heritage. Working in partnership with Art2Motion, the UP Museums site visit was for an explicit purpose to digitise and capture in high-resolution images select heritage objects on display in the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre.

According to Tiley-Nel, Curator of the Mapungubwe Collection at UP, “in recent years, the UP Museums are making great strides in creating digital versions of Mapungubwe’s heritage with a major focus on making them accessible to wider audiences,” and having digital versions helps with the conservation of the fragile and valuable items in the Mapungubwe Collection as well as facilitates research.” Matsobane Steven Motena added that "an engagement with the tourist guides at the Mapungubwe National Park and himself at the UP Museums was fruitful as they exchanged ideas and experiences as the ambassadors of the Mapungubwe Cultural History."

The objectives of both site visits to Mogalakwena and Mapungubwe were met, extending the footprint of the exhibition and the work of the Museum. The UP Museum staff had the opportunity to meet the remarkable women who made the Mogalakwena story cloths in person, as well as visiting international students and actively contribute to a UP postgraduate program. Meeting on site at Mapungubwe National Park World Heritage Site also cemented a long-standing partnership with SANParks, with collective efforts to make the Mapungubwe heritage more accessible.

Such curatorial fieldwork and site visits demonstrate in action the objective of UP Museums to extend the impact of our curatorial programmes into the community and provide more access to our exhibitions in real and tangible ways.