Philiswa Lila- When Art Becomes Part of the Political Conversation

Philiswa Lila- When Art Becomes Part of the Political Conversation- 

In Day 1 | Part 1 of my Weavers' Forum 2026 reflections, I explore how art became part of the political conversation through the work of South African multidisciplinary artist, curator and scholar Philiswa Lila.

Drawing on her powerful presentation, Behind the Needle, this episode reflects on the politics of making, the value of process over productivity, and how beadwork becomes a language for memory, identity, trauma and collective resistance. It also considers why the metaphor of weaving is central to the Weavers' Forum and what it teaches us about feminist organising, care and transformation.

Sometimes the most radical work is not in the finished piece, but in the patient, deliberate act of weaving something new, together.

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Welcome to Speaking Through My World with Rosie Wetene, part of the Feminist Frontlines Initiative, where we use the microphone as a tool for justice. This is a space where my three passions of women, Africa, and the arts meet in conversation. Through storytelling, healing, reflections, and courageous dialogues, we amplify voices, preserve her story, and explore the issues that are shaping our lives, communities, and our continent. Thank you for listening. Let's speak through my world. Day one, part one of the Weavers Forum. The conversations on the first day of the Weavers Forum were not confined to just economics. They were also expressed through art. We had the privilege of experiencing the work of South African multidisciplinary artist, curator, and scholar Peliswa Leela, whose presentation brought another dimension to the beautiful conversation. Through a moving video documentary documenting the process of creating one of her intricate beadwork pieces, Leela invited us to look beyond the finished artwork and into the act of making itself. Leela's studio practice is grounded in what she describes as her personal trinity of purpose, thought, needle, and thread. Rather than celebrating only the completed work, she draws our attention to the process, the moments of reflection, repetition, solitude, and becoming that are often invisible to those who only encounter the final piece. Leela's studio practice is grounded in what she describes as her personal trinity or purpose, thought, needle, and thread. Rather than celebrating only the completed work, she draws our attention to the process, the moments of reflection, repetition, solitude, and becoming that are often invisible to those who only encounter the final piece. You see, in a world obsessed with productivity, completion, and constant visibility, there's something deeply radical about embracing the unfinished. There's something equally radical about sitting in solitude, about making, about allowing the idea to emerge slowly without feeling the need to constantly prove its worth. For many artists, solitude is not absence, it's part of the creative process. Yet society often interprets periods of quiet, rest, or so-called non-production as irrelevance. Leader's work challenges that assumption, reminding us that creation often happens away from the public gaze. Habid work centers the sketch, the evolving piece and the unfinished work. In doing so, it reflects the way memory and identity are themselves continuously reworked, reimagined, and reproduced. You see, we are never static. We are always in the process of becoming. One of the most powerful ideas in Lila's practice is her description of the needle as a writing tool. The needle guides, it creates rhythm, it can also cause pain. And through it, individual beads find one another, becoming part of something collective. Her work also speaks to broader social realities, engaging questions of cultural identity, trauma, menstruation, and femicide. The bead work is not simply decorative, it's a form of storytelling, political commentary, and embodied memory. The inclusion of art within the Weaver's Forum was not incidental. It was a deliberate act of centering the Weaver's Forum core metaphor of weaving. A simple bead is simply a bead. But connecting to another and another and another, it becomes a pattern, a story, a collective expression, something far greater than the sum of its parts. That is also what feminist organizing asks of us. Our individual experiences are threads. Our stories are threads, our struggles are threads, our knowledge, creativity, and resistance are all threads. On their own, each carries meaning. But when we weave them together, they create something larger, a collective memory, a shared politics, and a vision for transformation that none of us could build alone. As I watch Police's work unfold, I realize that weaving is not simply just the theme of this gathering. It is its practice. It's how feminist movements are built one thread, one story, one act of care, one act of resistance at a time.