The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Divine Southgate-Smith welcomes us into her studio as she muses on material memory and the concept of gifting as a continuous act, as explored through her new piece 'Gifty'.
Words - Divine Southgate-Smith
Photography - Christian Cassiel
I’ve always thought of gifting as an act of connection - a way of acknowledging the relationship between giver and receiver. Working on this commission for COLFORD made me think more deeply about the sustainability of that act - not just environmentally, but emotionally and culturally.
A meaningful gift, to me, carries memory. It’s something that holds value because of the thought, time, or relationship it represents, rather than its material worth.
I’m a Togolese-British transdisciplinary artist and poet based in London. I work across a range of mediums - from digital print and sculpture to writing and video - often centring my practice around archives, memory and storytelling. I’m interested in how different societies record, remember and relate to time. Much of my research looks at the impact of institutional archives on the Black imaginary. I draw on Black Indigenous knowledge systems to explore how stories are told, preserved and sometimes distorted.
I like to think of the archive not as something fixed, but as something alive - something that can be rearranged, reimagined and used to build new ways of thinking about the future.
The piece I created for COLFORD is called 'Gifty'. It’s inspired by ancient traditions of gift exchange and by my childhood memories of reusing hat and shoe boxes to store keepsakes. The title comes from my sister’s childhood name, “Gifty” - a West African name meaning “gift from God” or “blessing”. So, the work feels both personal and symbolic. I wanted to make something that speaks to the idea of gifting as a continuous act and the life cycle of a gift.
I’ve been thinking a lot about patterns as a kind of language - a way of transmitting information, symbolism and stories through generations. Recently, I’ve been looking closely at the Ife Bronzes at the British Museum. Their distinctive facial markings really fascinate me - those small incisions speak volumes about identity, lineage and artistry. I’ve since been tracing similar forms of mark-making across West African craft and artefacts, noticing how these visual languages recur in different materials and contexts.
For Gifty, I wanted to bring that sense of continuity into the surface of the box. I worked with paper but wanted it to replicate wood - to reference both craftsmanship and heritage. I started by digitally sculpting a 3D model, carving into its surface as though working with wood. From there, I created a rendered image, which I then blocked, flipped and repeated to form a continuous pattern. The next stage will be printing that design onto paper, which will then be used to construct the final shoulder style box.
I like to think of it as a quiet conversation between materials - the paper referencing the tree it came from and the wood texture recalling the handwork and history embedded in the craft of box-making. It feels both traditional and contemporary, which is exactly the balance I was looking for.
Lately, my practice has centred around working with museum collections and thinking about how objects and materials act as vessels - how they hold stories, beliefs and the traces of the hands that made and cared for them. That sensitivity to material and its history really shaped how I approached Gifty.
While developing the piece, I revisited Lewis Hyde’s book ‘The Gift’, which explores how, in many cultures, giving isn’t about ownership or transaction but about circulation; about keeping things in motion so that relationships, rather than possessions, are what endure. Hyde writes about the “spirit” of a gift - how it gathers value the more it’s shared - and that idea really stayed with me. I love the thought that meaning doesn’t come from holding onto something, but from its movement and exchange.
For me, it’s about shifting the mindset as much as the material - understanding that generosity and care can be cyclical. In many traditional societies, gifting was a way of maintaining balance between people and nature. I wanted Gifty to capture that spirit - something that can be reused, re-gifted and cared for by many hands over time.
My days tend to shift depending on what I’m working on, but everything happens under one roof. I live and work in the same space - my mezzanine doubles as a studio. It feels a bit like a library; books stacked everywhere, archival images pinned to the walls and materials scattered across my table in organised chaos. It’s quiet, but full of energy. I’ll often have a pot of tea brewing and music playing - sometimes ambient sounds, other times I’ll pick up the guitar and play for a while.
Some days are completely absorbed in research. I might spend hours reading, writing or tracing connections between objects, images and stories. Other days are more tactile - experimenting with printing processes, layering surfaces or digitally sculpting textures for new works. I love that balance between digital precision and the unpredictability of materials.
Recently, I’ve been painting watercolours - it started as a way to unwind, but it’s become part of my thinking process. It’s a slower, more meditative way of working that helps me reconnect with the instinctive side of making.
I tend to hold onto cards and letters - they often end up pinned to my studio wall or even incorporated into exhibitions. One gift that stands out was a ceramic vessel made by my friend, the ceramicist Sharlen Nozawa. She made it after we’d had a long conversation in Paris about Suku cups from the Democratic Republic of Congo - ceremonial vessels I was researching at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
Traditionally, those cups were passed down through the maternal line and used in ceremonies honouring ancestors who previously owned the cup. Sharlen’s gift was her own interpretation of that tradition and I later presented her vessel alongside the original Suku cups at the museum. It reminded me that a gift can carry a lineage - it can keep stories moving.
I’ve really appreciated COLFORD's approach - combining storytelling, sustainability and design in such a thoughtful way. Collaborating on Gifty felt like a genuine conversation about what gifting can mean today. It made me think even more about how we create objects that carry both beauty and responsibility. I really enjoyed this reflective way of working and I’m looking forward to seeing how this conversation continues to evolve.