Facilitated by Noria Mabasa, this single-day woodcarving workshop enabled students from the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of Pretoria to learn directly from one of South Africa’s most celebrated and established woodcarvers. During the workshop, the artist demonstrated how to carve using a chisel and supported students (as well as fellow artists Hannelie Coetzee and Gordon Froud) in the making of their own busts / heads. It also included a walkabout of the artist’s concurrent exhibition, Shaping Dreams, in NIROX’s residency studio. Led by curator Sven Christian, the walkabout focused on the artist’s approach to woodcarving at varying scales, from her large drums to smaller, standalone figures and her life-size sculptural works in wood. It also included a brief introduction to her work in clay, comparing and contrasting the difference with her works in wood and what each medium affords.

The artwork created by Mabasa at the time was later included in the second iteration of Noria Mabasa: Shaping Dreams in the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture’s Project Space.