Whispers in Clay: The Hidden Language of Jabulile Nala

Walking into a gallery, there is a faint, ghostly perfume of woodsmoke and carbon scent that clings to the air. As you follow the smell, it leads you to a beautiful black object with soft luster camouflaged by the elegance of the ‘Fine Art’ world. To the uninitiated eye, that is all that it is, a perfect addition to the collection. With the label that reads ‘LG Black Beer Pot’ and the surrounding details of what it is made out of, which collections it belongs to, or if it is to be bought, and the artist’s name, Jabulile Nala (b.1969). The kind of object that invites a moment’s pause before the viewer moves on to the next room.

Artist, Jabulile Nala, 2024. Courtesy of Lifestyling. 

Jabulile & Ncamisile Nala, LG Black Beer Pot, [Hand coiled clay]. Amy Kaslow Gallery, Washington D.C.

A beautiful black object is exactly what the Eshowe, South Africa-born ceramic artist intends the viewer to observe. However, the pot is a Trojan Horse. A harmless, decorative, heritage-looking “craft” that enters the white cube, and all the while the soil remembers exactly what it was made for. Nala does not make pots to be merely admired but to carry a coded script that the institution displaying cannot fully read. A script that intentionally starts from the clay used. 

Remember that smell of the woodsmoke that is the smell of a Zulu hillside. Although you might not be able to smell the original, sharp, metallic scent of the wet minerals, which hold the unedited history of the world, that is where the script begins. Oyaya. The ancestral ground that holds Jabulile Nala and her people, a red-and-grey paper trail stretching back to the 1900s. It represents a continuous matrilineal archive, a legacy of women teaching the next generation to turn the soil into the vessels of their culture (International Folk Art Market, 2026). 

Ukhamba is a vessel known across many cultures in South Africa used to drink sorghum beer during ceremonies, as Nala states they do in the Zulu culture in a video interview (Nala, 2020). The ultimate record-keeper, holding a secret code that survives even when the spoken word is silenced. Nala has expanded the reach of the secret code by reimagining the pot's silhouette. By narrowing the belly and stretching its sides, she creates a wider 'page' for her hands (Jacobs, 2024). And at times, as seen in Ukhamba I (Nala, 2024) the pots are adorned with her interpretations as the “master of the uphiso form,” which are pots with necks (Red Lodge Clay Center, 2024). 

Jabulile Nala. (2024) Ukhamba I [Terracotta clay]. Art Formes, Cape Town.

The resulting form is less about containment and more about the transcription of memory—a larger surface for the soil to remember the intricate geometric truths of the Nala lineage. The code is carried into the negative spaces skilfully adorned with amasumpa, which are the ukhamba’s physical pulse. The raised nodules, almost secret, that catch light like seeds pressed into wet earth, each one a deliberate mark. These create a rhythmic syntax that signals lineage, status, and collective memory. Each dot would at times represent how many cows the family would have in their home (Nala, 2022). They are not just a pattern but a documented testimony that refuses to be translated into silence. 

Jabulile & Ncamisile Nala, Beer pot with handles [Hand coiled clay]. Amy Kaslow, Washington D.C.

The memory of the soil is physically seared into the vessel during the ground-firing process. The pots are shielded with protective coverings such as layers of shards, metal, or wood, replicating a century-old matrilineal technique (International Folk Art Market, 2026). The fire negotiates with the clay, allowing the minerals of the earth to dictate the final smoky patina. To finish, she applies animal fat, which the clay absorbs, creating a soft luster. Through Oyaya, the pot is filled not with drink, but with its historicity. It asserts that the soil it is made from is the same soil that witnessed the original ceremonies, making the pot a permanent resident of its homeland, regardless of its GPS coordinates.

Jabulile & Ncamisile Nala, Black pot [Hand coiled clay]. Amy Kaslow Gallery, Washington D.C.

And so the ukhamba endures. Not due to the preservation decided by the institution, nor by the collector who gave a wall. But because a woman in Eshowe learned from her mother, who learned it from her mother, with soil that has been holding this knowledge beyond the 1900s. Nala is a custodian with her work having formed a linguistic pipeline, a living language that survives in the hands that join and scrape the coils of it, the amasumpa marks, and the fire that seals it. A living language that she cannot spend a day without, as it feels like she “did not drink a cup of tea since morning” (Nala, 2020). The pot will outlast the gallery. The code will outlast the institution. But will it be in that space? the coded language awaits a viewer with the correct cultural key to unlock its testimony.

SOURCES CONSULTED

• International Folk Art Market. 2026. The Art of Zulu Pottery. 

• Jacobs, M. 2024. Feat of clay. Lifestyling.

• Nala, J. 2020. Jabulile Nala: The Zulu Peer Pot. [Online Video]. 

• Nala, J. 2022. Amy Kaslow Gallery Artist Spotlight: Jabulile Nala. [Online Video].

• Red Lodge Clay Center, 2024. Concurrence in Clay [Online].