Though Mafafo designs the compositions for her textiles, based on her personal experiences, memories and emotional states, the three women create the works together, each contributing their individual styles of expression. The same stitch done by another’s hand is dierent,’ explains Mafafo. ‘We have dierent bodies, techniques and rhythms.’ All of this, translated through the yarns, results in richly textured surfaces that speak of kins- hip, womanhood and cross-cultural connection. In many ways, the woman that appears in almost all of Mafafo’s works, albeit in dierent guises, is representative of the creative dialogue that happens in the studio as well as conduit for emotional and spiritual energies. In one work, she appears as a goddess-like gure in a rippling blue dress amid a swirling cosmos of colourful plants and patterns. In one work, she  appears as a goddess-like gure in a rippling blue dress amid a swirling cosmos of colourful plants and patterns. Here, as in the other works, there is no denition to the space that surrounds her – she is untethered, oating, but it is a state that is associated with both joy and calm. She gazes up, directly at the viewer, with a composed and deant expression while in the works titled Emerging into Self III and IV her eyes are closed as if lost in deep contemplation. The latter works, in particular, reect on therapeutic and transformative eects of making and experiencing art – it can serve as a portal to another world, providing access to dierent ways of seeing and feeling. The twisted tendrils of rope that appear in many of the pieces and in which two colours are bound are lifelines as well as symbols of togetherness and protection.