Writer: Thami John | Photographs: Woza Sisi Collective
This Saturday (16 August), the Woza Sisi Collective will re-launch its seminal artist book, Woza Sisi – Your Beauty Is My Concern, alongside the introduction of The Daily Braid Project, a multidisciplinary platform that brings wearable art, cultural storytelling, and community engagement into conversation through newly released merchandise.
Originally launched in April 2023, the artist book grew out of Dahlia Maubane’s long-standing photographic documentary project, Woza Sisi, initiated in 2012. It showcases the work of photographers Simphiwe Julia Thabede, Tsholofelo Kodisang, Lusanda Mdluli, and Fiona Dahvana, developed through a peer-driven mentorship process with Bongiwe Phakathi, Fulufhelo Mobadi, and Maubane.
“Instead of a traditional top-down model, the project fostered a collaborative space where everyone, photographers and mentors alike, learned with and from each other,” says the Collective.
“It encouraged open dialogue, mutual support, and helped the photographers craft layered, personal, and deeply reflective visual narratives.”
Dahlia Maubane
The publication explores themes of urban spatial politics, gendered labour, representation, migration, motherhood, and anti-Blackness, focusing particularly on how Black women street hairstylists navigate and reshape public space. For the Collective, braiding is not only about beauty but also about resistance, memory, and connection.
“For many Black women living and working in the city, braiding is a way to claim space, push back against exclusion, and build a life in the face of economic and social pressures,” they note.
“These hairstylists transform the everyday into something powerful, turning their skills into survival and their workspaces into places of pride.”
The launch of The Daily Braid Project extends the ethos of the book into daily life.
“It breathes new life into the conversations started in our artist book,” says a member of the Collective.
“While the book offered a space for deep reflection through photography and personal stories, The Daily Braid Project takes those same themes—hair, identity, labour, and womanhood—and weaves them into the rhythm of daily life. This shift matters. It takes the conversation out of formal spaces and into the everyday, into the streets, salons, dinner tables, and taxis where these stories truly belong.”
Through limited-edition apparel, textiles, and artist-designed objects, the project invites the public to wear, touch, and carry these narratives as part of a “living archive… a tribute to the women who braid, who hustle, who care, and who create, often unseen.”
Event Details:
Venue: Lit.Culture
Address: 29 Chiswick St, Brixton, Johannesburg, 2019
DATE: Saturday 16 August 2025
TIME: 11:00 am – 3 pm
Tsholofelo Kodisang
About the Woza Sisi Collective
The Woza Sisi Collective is a Black women-led Collective dedicated to amplifying the work of lens-based artists and cultural practitioners. Inspired by Woza Sisi (translated as “Come, Sister”), the Collective’s mission is to honour lived experiences, empower creative agency, and create spaces for women to tell their stories through photography, publishing, and collaboration. The members of the Collective are Dahlia Maubane, Fulufhelo Mobadi and Tsholofelo Kodisang.
