Quilt Arts of South Africa: Threaded Legacies Edited by Marsha MacDowell

In the southernmost region of the African continent, women have been piecing together materials—textile construction techniques commonly used in quilting— to create bed coverings throughout the history of the San and Khoi peoples. From the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century, an influx of Dutch, French, Indian, and British military personnel, traders, miners, and missionaries came to South Africa, bringing with them their own cultural traditions, including making and using quilts. Today, the making of quilts in South Africa is flourishing.

Quilt Arts of South Africa (Indiana University Press, 2025) stitches together the history, production, and significance of quilt-making from its earliest appearance in the continent’s southernmost region to the twenty-first century. With input from curators, linguists, art historians, activist artists, and folklorists, this book presents disparate yet connected inquiries into a wide-ranging history of the quilt. These perspectives connect a rich expressive art to place, showing how the quilting traditions in South Africa together reflect a unique cultural history and natural landscape.

This volume is edited by Marsha MacDowell, an AFS Fellow, with contributions by Coral Bijoux, Elsa Brits, Jeni Couzyn, Menán du Plessis, Jeanette Gilks, Vicky Heunis, Sandra Kriel, Miems Lamprecht, Juliette Leeb-du Toit, Marsha MacDowell, Carolyn Mazloomi, Dawn Pavitt, Brenda Schmahmann, Patricia A. Turner and Michael Walwyn.