NATASHA GUTMAN
When Natasha Gutman looks back at her memories, she vividly pictures her mother and her aunt in the living room of their house in South Africa secretly meeting with black women as a part of a hidden organization called “Kontak” that helped to empower and bridge the gap between the two divided communities.
She remembers the women singing together, laughing, and dancing. It became this page in history that inspired Gutman for the course of her life. Through the pursuit of studying art and later art therapy, she found a path in building a career doing the thing she loves and empowering disenfranchised communities through building a career with art.
It was with this in mind that Gutman teamed up with Dr. Diddy Mymin to develop The African Refugee Development Centre which enabled the formation of Kuchinate (the word for crochet in the Eritrean language of Tigrinya). Kuchinate is a women’s collective in Tel Aviv that creates handmade crochet baskets and rugs. The women of this collective not only produce items that generate income, but they also have a physical space to come together and support one another in their unique journey. Gutman faced her own personal battle of pursuing a career and trying to build her family, and when struggles with infertility became an issue, she understood the power of art and community to overcome obstacles and face challenges.
Today, pregnant with twin girls, she’s able to look at the work she’s doing to see how it has influenced her life and the lives of so many others – how strength, perseverance, and compassion are never in vain.