"Vessel" focuses on antique ceremonial Zulu pottery, together with other vessels from southern Africa. It includes works by contemporary master ceramists Clive Sithole, Ntombe Nala, Thembi Nala, and Nesta Nala, who has won numerous awards for her internationally acclaimed work.
Zulu pots, made for the ritualized brewing and consumption of sorghum beer, are spiritual vessels, linked to the ancestors who govern all fertility. Pots are decorated, blackened, and burnished to please the spirits. Undecorated brewing pots are especially sacred because fermentation is a metaphor of conception.

Symbolic designs include raised bumps that recall women's scarifications, linking the earthen vessels with women's bodies. Motifs also symbolize cattle, which were the focus of traditional Zulu life and ceremonial sacrifices.

African art from this region is epitomized by the elegant, minimalist forms and subtle decorative rhythms of these vessels.