Cape Town–based artist Patrick Bongoy is among the artists included in Thread, an international group exhibition in London which explores contemporary approaches to weaving. The exhibition brings together artists working with a wide range of materials and techniques.
Born in 1980 in Kinshasa, Bongoy studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Kinshasa before relocating to Cape Town in 2013, where he continues to live and work. Over the past decade he has built an international exhibition history, with solo presentations at Gallery MOMO, Ebony/Curated and Association for Visual Arts, among others. His work has also appeared in group exhibitions at institutions such as the African American Museum of Dallas and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
At the centre of Bongoy’s practice is a careful process of transformation. He works primarily with discarded inner tubes from tyres, cutting the rubber into thin strips which are then woven together into dense surfaces. The material is sometimes combined with hessian sacks, industrial packaging and fragments of textile. Through this slow, labour-intensive process he builds layered sculptural panels that sit somewhere between weaving, relief and sculpture.
Two works by Bongoy appear in Thread: In the Wind (2026) and Way of Ancestors (2026), both made from inner rubber tubing and tyre valves mounted on board. In these pieces the rubber strips are tightly interlaced, forming textured surfaces that absorb and reflect light in subtle ways. The works retain traces of their previous life as industrial material, while the weaving process reshapes them into something more contemplative.
Bongoy’s method draws on techniques related to traditional basket making, but the choice of material introduces a contemporary edge. Rubber carries associations with industry, transport and labour, and in the context of Bongoy’s work it also reflects everyday realities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The act of cutting, weaving and rebuilding the material becomes a way of reflecting on labour, resilience and transformation.
The exhibition Thread looks broadly at how artists today are rethinking weaving as both a technique and a conceptual framework. For thousands of years, woven structures have been used to produce textiles and practical objects, but the basic idea is threads crossing to create structure has also served as a metaphor for connection and exchange. In contemporary art this language is increasingly being explored through unconventional materials.
Artists in the exhibition work with everything from plant fibres and bamboo to metal, feathers and recycled textiles. What they share is an interest in weaving as a way of organising materials and ideas. Threads become lines that build space, patterns that carry meaning and structures that hold stories.
Within this context, Bongoy’s work offers a powerful example of how the language of weaving can extend beyond traditional fibre. By turning discarded rubber into intricate woven surfaces, he links material history with personal and collective narratives. The result is work that is both physically striking and quietly reflective.
Today Bongoy’s work appears in a number of institutional collections, including the Harn Museum of Art, the Iziko South African National Gallery and the UNISA Art Gallery. In 2024 he was also shortlisted for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, reflecting growing international recognition of his practice.
In Thread, his woven rubber works sit alongside a wide range of contemporary textile approaches. Yet their material clarity and patient construction offer a reminder that weaving, one of the oldest creative technologies, continues to provide artists with new ways of thinking about form, memory and the structures that shape human experience.
Featured artists: Arko, Dana Barnes, Patrick Bongoy, Ann Coddington, Aude Franjou, Lin Fanglu, Teresa Hastings, Wanbing Huang, Tim Johnson, Taylor Kibby, Alida Kuzemczak-Sayer, Kate MccGwire, Adriana Meunié, Annette Mills, Joana Schneider, Diana Scherer, Wycliffe Stutchbury, Amy Usdin and Lucy Williams.
Images and information courtesy of the Sarah Myerscough Gallery
