9 June to 25 July 1992 Unparalleled in variability and versatility, transformed plant fibres play a significant role in the production of human material culture. Distanced from the context of production, one is not always aware of the limitless adaptations which have as their source common plants. Crafted with infinite skill, ingenuity and care, plant fibres are altered to become such diverse forms as shelters, masks, walls, containers, baskets, roofs, bags, clothing, netting, dolls, matting, bedding, rope and bracelets. The indigenous cultures of southern Africa abound in the production of objects which possess the rare combination of both functionality and high aesthetic resolution. Traditionally, these utilitarian objects also serve as cultural markers locating the identity and status of their users and are, in some instances, known to have symbolic meaning. This exhibition presented these formally rich variations as well as some related aspects such as modes of production, ecological factors and commercialisation. For centuries the indigenous people of Africa have possessed a comprehensive understanding of locally available plant species - those which have medicinal uses, those most pliable and those that make the best dyes. Valued for their useful properties they also appear to embody, for these traditional cultures, the regenerative forces of life, birth and death. The objects made from these natural resources fuse their utilitarian function with a pervading sense of a larger cosmology. Significance is present not only in the material used but also in the forms and designs of these objects. Without written language to objectify social structures and power relations, the traditional societies from which most of these objects originate invested material culture with a non-verbal language. They become an unspoken, but continuously present, system of cultural markers. Things become bearers of meaning and shapers of social interaction. In doing so these objects are intrinsically meaningful, combining the sacred and the mundane and ordering the social organisation of the group. This may give us some idea why the smallest, most utilitarian, object is made with such infinite care and skill. The theme of fibre provided the rationale for bringing together a range of seemingly unrelated objects - an initiation costume and a winnowing basket, a door and a doll or a roof and a skirt. Disparate current visual vocabulary includes notions of transience and impermanence. (Performance art and temporary, large-scale environmental interference such as the wrapping of mountains and islands by Christo.) The most striking feature of this display is the limitless range of adaptations and variations: grass is stacked, plaited, stitched, rolled; reeds are split, bound and sewn; raffia-palm fibres are woven and embroidered with the intricacy of oriental carpets; wood is slivered and restructured; roots are boiled, dyed and coiled; bark is chewed and hammered; some are worked wet and others dry; and they range in size from the minuscule to the monumental. Some examples could not be brought into the gallery ­ either because of size or availability. In Western economies the weaving of utility objects with grass or other hand-processed fibres is seen as a stigmatised, devalued activity undertaken by only the rural poor or the mentally or physically handicapped. Terms such as "basket case" succinctly reveal these attitudes. These objects have been further disadvantaged in that natural, hand-processed fibres are in antithesis to what for centuries has been considered the appropriate material for making "high art" ­ materials such as bronze and marble which represent the qualities of permanence and value. But as global awareness turns its attention to preservation, so these more fragile objects acquire status. Now seen as transient - culturally and ecologically threatened - this makes them precious and gives them heightened value in an art/culture environment. Ironically, the parameters of Western aesthetics have also broadened to accommodate alternative materials such as natural fibres and the repetitive processes of weaving and binding. (For example, in the sculpture of Andries Botha and Walter Oltmann.) The visual vocabulary includes notions of transience and impermanence. (Performance art and temporary, large-scale environmental interference such as the wrapping of mountains and islands by Christo.) It is tempting, but not sufficient, to admire these objects only in terms of newly receptive visual categories - an attempt should also be made to understand their unique qualities with reference to those cultural situations which gave them meaning and motivated their making. The texts and photographs which formed part of this exhibition supplied some of the missing contexts which are important to the understanding of these objects. They can no longer be seen as part of a minor craft reserved for utility objects devoid of symbolic or other associations. The Standard Bank African Art Collection is permanently housed at the University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries.