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  Azar Emami Pari

  A carpet is neither produced nor read like other pictures. As such, how does it communicate and what is the proper way of reading a carpet? Does it enjoy an esoteric meaning? A meaning beyond that of its patterns? In other words: is the carpet a decorative object with a symbolic or iconic meaning added on top, or does it contain—at least for viewer who belongs to Persian visual culture—a meaning completely different from any other quotidian object? The mesmerizing power of the carpet lies in the fact that it convinces the viewer of the latter. Many studies on the subject aim at understanding how different Persian carpets are made, trying to elucidate the nature of their mode of production. Yet, “how the appearance is consumed”^[1] has rarely been the subject of study, as well as inquiring about the causes behind the formation of such a bizarre appearance. It can easily be shown that the answer cannot be reduced to how a carpet is produced: it is clear that Persian carpets are more than, as it were, a pixelated version of Persian images found in other Persian decorative arts, or the product of a “design process” (as one understands the term today) and sheer creativity; it is rather an object unlike any other quotidian objects and not just another branch of fine or decorative arts.

   

  It is very difficult to penetrate the different layers of meaning in a Persian carpet, at least much more so than Persian miniature paintings for example there is a winding path from form to meaning in carpets. A Persian carpet has something to say that is not a statement: it is not a text with a definitive meaning, not even one that we could call “abstract” in the sense of avoiding any reference to the real world. Similar to mystic verses of Sufis, known as shat-hiyyāt, whose general meaning is unclear to the reader, yet written down, with meaningful words, for a purpose clear to the author, the appearance of carpets insists on signifying something: they are not just pleasant melodies without words. As such, the carpet cannot be studied as an abstract painting. (Probably that is why it has rarely inspired modern Persian paintings and protects itself against easy visual plagiarism.) The image of a carpet is not the same as the carpet itself: the carpet is not produced to be “seen”, rather be “watched” in the long term. It is meant to be lived on, not to be distanced from the viewer to produce a moment of reflection, which is the essence of European painting. It is not an exaggeration to say that every Iranian grows up on a carpet and learns visual literacy from it. It is the very first window through which every Iranian look. The opposite of a Renaissance painting, i.e. a window opening to the outside world, is the carpet, not even the Persian miniature painting.

   

  Despite its decorative function, the effect of Persian carpets, and in particular pictorial Persian carpets, on viewers do not depend on the text that accompanies it (as is the case with urban, fictional, pictorial carpets^[2] and Persian painting alike). The origins of pictorial carpet have been, as it follows, purely aesthetical, nothing more.

   

  Historically, pictorial carpets appeared as new art, not only because of a change in their function but also because of their new appearance^[3].  They were woven according to the personal taste of weavers or specific clients, and for that reason, they were less mass-produced. There is no doubt that such carpets as Persian miniatures are ultimately born of the poverty of illustration^[4] in Iran. Such carpets, also known as figural carpets, “emerged in the late twelfth century AH (18th century AD) following developments in various other fields of art in Iran and coincided with the emergence of new possibilities in the visual realm, such as printed pictures or photographs. All these led to a new expression in Persian carpet weaving.” (Tanavoli, 1989:9) The story narrations in the pictorial carpets of Iran have different origins. Themes of pictorial carpets include kings, epic and romance stories from classical Persian literature, religious themes and stories of Quran, dervish and Sufism, Armenians pictorial carpets, nomads’ pictorial carpets, pretty women, and animals.

   

  In order to enter the realm of the Persian carpet, let us begin from a simpler point of departure. We ask: what is the relationship of the carpet to the space in which it is unrolled? What is the horizon of the carpet and what is space and time in the carpet? The objective form of such a relationship is reflected in the relation between the carpet and the architectural space. Of course, we have samples of carpets woven for a particular space, as well as spaces built to house a particular carpet. We know, for example, that Nasser al-Din Shah (who reigned from 1848 to 1896) ordered a complete building to be fitted with a carpet he received as a present from the Ottoman sultan. Mo’ayer al-Mamālek writes: “Abyaz Palace: Although the building is still in place, not everybody knows why it was built, therefore, some facts are mentioned here. Sultan Abdul Hamid sent dozens of pieces of furniture and some precious Turkish carpets to Nasser al-Din Shah. Several large portraits of European kings and queens painted by the most influential painters of the era were also given to Nasser al-Din Shah. As other palaces were all decorated with various ornaments and were not suitable for the aforementioned gifts, so the king ordered the Abyaz palace to be built and tailored to the size of the largest Ottoman carpet. When it was finished, they unrolled the carpet in the hall and decorated the space with precious upholstery. They hung the portraits together with another painting depicting Napoleon I, given to Fat’h Ali Shah, thus creating a magnificent hall for receiving kings and dignified guests. One day I was there when the king went to the treasury, and there he chose some artifacts to complete the arrangement of the Abyaz palace.”

   

  The visual significance of the Persian carpet must be considered as Iranians’ historical understanding of art and painting as an independent language, and pictorial carpets can perhaps be formulated as a new form of testimony to such a language. The language begins with the synchronicity of Persian painting with literature and fiction texts and its culmination in the pictorial carpet. Persian painting is considered narrative art. “Because some example of Persian painting is an illustrated book that depicts a literary text, most of which are fiction.” (Shokrpour, Azhari, 2019:104) In Persian painting, the drawings depend on the text “and this feature is one of the main features of the illustrations of Shahnameh, which includes short and concise themes in which the narrative aspect lies. These texts were chosen for illustration because their readers were fully acquainted with the leading text, allowing the painter to show the last minutes of the events and the most notable or most tragic moments in his work.” (Shokrpour, Azhari, 2019:104) The logic of the carpet, however, is much more complex than painting. The charm and wonder of the pictorial carpet stem from the middle point between the carpet and painting, where the story originates, and which, of course, has become “inexpressible.” Neither the image nor the story is a reality of this world; just like the miniature, pictorial carpet is also an imaginary window to stories; no event or thing in that frame has a real presence. They are pure images (without any text) that create a suspended and immaterial world of colors, shapes, and textures. Pictorial carpet is a unity resulting from the contradictions between the common presence of figural pictures and details of carpet designs. That is why the carpet frame and its details have added to its grace and appeal rather than reducing the magical attractiveness. The “childish” aspect of such images, which are not solely due to the weaver's inability to render everything realistic, is a result of a vast game of imagination combined with pictures.

   

  What is unique in the pictorial carpet is the magical aspect, and the subject of the painting is completely insignificant. Of course, in harmony with the scene, each picture has its own special figural drawing and necessities in terms of color combination. (The color combination is insignificant in nomadic and rural pictorial carpets. For example, the skin color of the body could be very strange, e.g., red, etc.). But whatever the image is, whether romantic like countless scenes of Shirin bathing with Khosrow secretly watching her or battle scenes, such as the battle of Rostam and Sohrāb, the shocking effect of the pictorial carpet is the same in each case.

  

  Figure 4: Lilihan Poshti. The story of Khosrow and Shirin. Natural color, size 100*67 cm, Yousef Samadi Bahrami’s Collection.

  Figure 5: Rostam and Sohrab, Karabakh (South Caucasus), inscription reads: “Sohrab” (inverted text), late 13th century AH, 120*85 cm, asymmetric knot, displaying 672 knots per square decimeter (Tanavoli 1989, 43) When the carpet depicts a story, it does not narrate it.

   

  A pictorial carpet is not really depicting the place of an event or the feeling or interpretation of what happened in the scene. Apart from the feeling of wonder at the visual beauty reflected in the carpet, there is nothing but a thoughtful or emotional expression: there is no drama, no sadness or sense of impression. The event as a whole is an absent element in the pictorial carpet. All details are equally important; thus, the important function of a pictorial carpet is that it guides the viewer's gaze on numerous details of the carpet, while an inner harmony skillfully creates a strong, decorative unity. Such carpets attract viewers’ attention, not because the scene is a special story that is unsuccessful in its narration, but in the harmony with the story figures within the form of a carpet.

  

  Figure 6: Baluch, Zabol, mid-14^th AH century, asymmetric knot, 1280 knots per square decimetre; this carpet displays a scene from the story of Khosrow and Shirin. However, the images in the carpet do not narrative anything and if the viewer is unfamiliar with the story there is little to be understood from the images. (Tanavoli 1989, 48)
  

   

  Of course, the carpet, in its physical aspect, has a distinctive relation to space in Persian architecture, as it covers a rectangular space that shall not deflect both horizontally and vertically. It is true that the carpet was not always considered a floor covering and not necessarily been rectangular in shape: as in the case of saddlebags and cushions, or carpets hanging from walls or covering a horse or a mule, and so on. Yet it is the Persian architectural space that provides a flat, rectangular space for the carpet: it is part of the formal relationship of carpets with the architectural space. This is why in European paintings that feature a Persian carpet, the first thing that strikes an Iranian viewer is the unusual use of these carpets: Hung from a window crawled up the stairs and deflected in height. This, in itself, has a definite relation to the way the carpet is seen: on the one hand, the formal carpet looks like a horizontal tableau that is clearly framed and as such forms a totality. It does not resemble, for example, the scattered Islamic designs on glazed tiles that crawl up walls whose entirety forms the totality of the building; on the contrary, the carpet has a strong, coherent framing that protects it against any deflection.

   

  In the past, Persian carpets were not masked by pieces of furniture and thus better seen in their entirety. The carpet was the most important part of interior design. It was a furniture in itself. Thus, the carpet is fundamentally different from a painting: viewers of a carpet never actually see it in its entirety because they are already standing “on” the carpet. They never lose contact with it or distance themselves from it, far enough to see it in its entirety. They can kneel and touch it, or sit or lie down on it and get closer to it as much as they want, but their distance to the carpet never exceeds their height. The prohibition of walking on carpets with footwear allows a close and intimate relationship with the carpet, emphasizing its dignity and sanctity. Even paintings on ceilings (which sometimes reflect the patterns of a carpet, as in the case of Sheikh Safi’s tomb) do not enjoy such quality and can be seen and appreciated in one glance while remaining out of viewers’ reach. In the case of carpets, viewers can see the design from different angles and need to move in space and change their standpoint to fully appreciate the work (exactly the same way they need to circulate within the introverted spaces of Persian architecture in order to grasp a proper sense of space).

   

  It might seem that the distance between the carpet and the observer is a secondary quality of the carpet and does not have a direct impact on the aesthetic aspect of the Persian carpet. However, we know of aesthetic systems (including that of Kant) that define the aesthetic experience fundamentally on the basis of an idea of distance. The most prominent is that of Edward Bullough (1880-1934), the English aestheticist, i.e. Psychical Distance. In a paper published in 1912, Bullough writes that the aesthetic experience takes place at a certain distance from the work, not too far nor too close, and this applies to the locative, temporal, and subjective distance of the observer from the object, and is an aesthetic principle (Neil 1995, 304), and is an element present in all art forms (ibid., 299). The transition from the agreeable to the beautiful takes place through distance (Neil 1995, 305). And it is advisable to reduce this distance both in creating and in understanding art, without having it completely removed. (Neil 1995, 302) In his view, this depends both on the audience and the object (Neil 1995, 302). For instance, the Persian miniature takes advantage of its small dimensions to reduce such distance. In carpets, however, the distance is completely different, both objectively and subjectively. The maximum distance is a person’s height and the minimum is zero. It is this distance that has resulted in the unique form of viewing carpets. The Persian carpet is not seen, but “watched” (tamāshā), as was the case with Persian gardens. That is to say, carpets were observed in motion, with a constant shift of the viewer’s point of view. The term tamāshā means “to watch” and “to walk in the garden with a friend” at the same time. Such a relationship between how carpets and gardens are viewed is by no means a coincidence. Persian carpets have long been associated with Persian gardens, sometimes even reflecting and imitating their patterns. In terms of function, the Persian carpet brings nature into the interior and plays the role of green in times of the year when grass does not grow. We know that the famous Sassanid “Baharestan” carpet had a similar function. Tabari History writes about this carpet:

   

  “They wove a carpet with colored silk, sixty cubits in sixty cubits … they unrolled it in wintertime when no flowers blossomed and no green was seen on the globe. On the margins were sown emeralds and peridots… Omar ripped the carpet and the gems and gave each person a fair share… Ali ibn Abi Talib received his, which he sold for twenty thousand Dirhams.” (Tabari History, 1985, 41).

   

  Thus, we encounter one of the most important subjective aspects of the relationship between carpets and architecture: the viewer is a part of the image; the observer of a carpet is “inside” the carpet. This also properly explains the horizon line in Persian carpets, which is very different from that of miniature painting: the carpet does not necessarily have a horizon line, and the horizon line is not necessarily within the carpet or in its “upper” part. The figures in pictorial carpets are not depicted “on” the carpet but are rather “inside” the carpet, like a letter in an envelope.

  

  Figure 7: Horse and stableman, Hamedan, Darjazin, early 14th Century AH, 189*129 cm, symmetrical knot, 1296 knots per square decimeter (Tanavoli 1989, 95). The logic of the carpet design is much more bizarre than miniature. Where is the horizon line in this carpet?

   

  This statement is also true on another level: the observer is “within” the carpet subjectively too. The carpet is not a home decoration, it is part of the home: it is home itself. This is why the unit for counting carpets, was called “home” (khāneh), or why the carpet sometimes imitates the plan of the Persian houses or gardens. Children are well enough familiar with this concept and elders respect it too. Children carefully trying to walk on the lines of a carpet pattern imagine themselves walking on a bridge above avoid. The patterns of a Persian carpet always show depth, as opposed to Persian miniature painting which appears flat and even.

   

  So, when confronted with carpets, even pictorial ones, “touching” is more important than “seeing”. In fact, this is the only way to see it. Touching renders, us more dominant. Seeing does not allow one to understand the physical quality of a phenomenon, but the tactile sensation does. In pictorial carpets, this touching proximity is more realistic than an unattainable distance, as it empowers the viewer to touch the universe once again. The carpet is a representation of the universe, as the root of the Persian term indicates: in Haji/Engineer Travelogue, Ali Hassouri traces the root of the word Qāli (carpet), back to Qalin in the early Islamic centuries, to the words Kalinin the Sassanid era and Kar’einé in Avestan, back to the word Kāshtan (“planting”), as making every carpet knot is like planting a seed, that would later represent grass at the time of its absence in winter: the carpet is a perpetuated Persian garden. (Hassouri 2017, 42) In Mithraism, human beings are descendent of the plants: Mashya and Mashyana, the first human beings to grow out of the earth. Each knot of a carpet is a seed that is planted with hope and carries a wish, the same way lovers knot grasses in Nowruz with the hope of their wishes being fulfilled. Every Persian couple begins their married life with a home/carpet on which their children will later grow up and flourish.

   

  Resources

  • Emami Pari, Azar, and Bavand Behpoor. “The Iranian Carpet Is not a Picture”, Herfeh Honarmand (Iranian quarterly journal on visual arts), no. 73 (2019): 151-160.
  • Parviz Tanavoli (1989) Iranian Pictorial Rugs (Tehran: Soroush Publication)
  • Hafiz-e Abru, Nur-Allah ibn Lotf-Allah ibn 'Abd-al-Rashid Behdadini, edited by Seyyed Kamal Haj Seyyed Javadi (Tehran: Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance Publications)
  • Ali Hasouri (2017) Haji muhandes Travelogue (Carpet Travelogue) (Tehran: Cheshme Publication)
  • Doost Ali Khan Muir al-Mamalek (2011) Notes on the private life of Nasser al-Din Shah (Tehran: Iranian History Publication)
  • Alex and Aaron Ridley Neil (ed.) (1995) The Philosophy of Art: Ancient and Modern Readings (Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill)
  • shokrpour, and f.azhari , Azhari. “The role of the Figure in the Narratology of Persian Paintings” (Case Study: Six Drawings from Shahnameh Tahmasebi), Journal of Visual and Applied Arts (Quarterly Journal of Tehran Art University). no. 25 (2019): 101-121.
  • Tabari History, illustrated version, 1208 ed., Astan Quds Razavi, Iran Culture Foundation, 1966, 17-18, quoted from Parham 1985, 41.

   

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to express my special thanks to my colleague and friend, Mr. Bavand Behpoor, for his intellectual support and insightful comments on this paper.

   

   

  ^[1] The function of a carpet does not justify its appearance: Persian carpet has played throughout history a much more significant role for Iranians than merely providing a warm and soft flooring and has gained its appearance through complex and lengthy historical procedures.

  ^[2] Persian pictorial carpets have been divided into two classes: one is urban carpets, and the other rural and nomadic ones. Urban carpets were woven according to a plan, painted by a carpet-designer, while nomadic carpets had a different origin. In Iranian villages and among Persian tribes, carpets were woven without a plan, and rather based on another carpet. When a weaver intends to weave a carpet, s/he borrows a carpet from their neighbors or relatives and uses it as a model (in local parlance: “Dastūr”). (Tanavoli, 1989:16)

  ^[3] The installation of pictorial carpets on walls brought about changes in the way carpets were used. The new application moved the carpet from the floor and underfoot to the walls, turning it into a painting. Previously, ordinary carpets were occasionally hung on at door gates and walls, but that was a temporary function, in occasions such as wedding, religious celebrations, especially commemorating the birthday of the last Imam (the Messiah or “Mahdi”). Walls of houses, shops and markets could be decorated with carpets, a custom that still exists today. (Tanavoli, 1989:14)

  ^[4] The 19th and 20th centuries should be considered the time of popularization of illustration in Iran. In those two centuries, a significant tendency towards simulation and naturalism became apparent in nearly all branches of art. Simulation, as a pervasive movement, attracted the attention of artists. The leaders of that movement, of course, were painters. Although painters constitute different classes and branches in this, the main goal of all groups was to depict their subjects through likeness and similarity to nature. Two groups of painters had the largest share in spreading visual arts among the masses: Coffee-House painters and religious painters. The works of these artists were widely seen and influenced the taste of artists in other disciplines, including engravers, illustrators of printed books, and carpet weavers. (Tanavoli, 1989:11)

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  Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel

  Different cultures may practise different hair beauty culture. Some of the hair beauty cultural practise could be unisex or may distinguish between sexes. In this instance, hair becomes a tool for sexual differentiation and serves as a precursor to one’s gender. It may tell which part of the world a person hails from. That notwithstanding, one may borrow hairstyles from different cultures other than his or her own for fashionable reasons since fashion inspiration is multicultural. Based on the cultural orientation and the role of a particular hairstyle to a group, society or institution, hair aesthetic ideals may be preserved as a tool for identity construction. A typical example of a hairstyle that has remained resilient even in the face of (neo)colonial and imperial hair aesthetic regimentation of the West on Africa is kentenkye hairstyle (Akan Women’s Hairstyle, 2008), popularly renamed as dansikran. Legendary has it that, queen mother Nana Kwaadu Yiadom II, (1917 - 1945), the sister of Nana Prempeh I, of the Asante Kingdom, performed the majestic Adowa dance during the restoration of the Asante Confederacy around 1935 in her kentenkye hairstyle, which inspired the then Governor’s description of her kentenkye hairstyle as a 'dancing crown' (Akrase, 2008) due to its visual effect during the dance. The phrase ‘dancing crown’ was linguistically corrupted as dansinkran which has become the popular name of the hairstyle.

   

  The dansinkran hairstyle is noted for its simple, yet iconic stature in purely indigenous Ghanaian cultural milieu. Its selection was informed by its historical epoch, purely indigenous natural hair beauty care and treatment and socio-political significance in Ghanaian chieftaincy. It has proven to be an unadulterated Ghanaian hair fashion practice necessary in the decolonisation of hair fashion discourse. It is important in the decolonisation of hair discourse in the sense that it is purely Afrocentric which has evolved from its symbolic status to contemporary appropriation. The use of purely natural and sustainable hair treatment cosmetics with little or no harmful effect on the body makes it worthy of handing down to youth. This is because, there has been influx of artificial hair cosmetics with detrimental dermal effects which many youth subscribe to in the name of modernity without recourse to its side effects. The historical significance and interest of this hairstyle for posterity, especially as something of Africa practise, contributes in this regard to the decolonisation process. Dansinkran polity and politics among Akan kings, queens, chiefdom and the society in general reinforced its choice.

   

  This hairstyle is achieved by trimming down the peripheries of the crown of the head almost to the skin while the remaining portions are trimmed to define the oval shape of a wearer’s head. The haircut gives the head a calabash-like shape. A natural black pomade-like colourant mixture composed of powered charcoal, soot and sheabutter, is then applied to the hair to give it intense blackened appearance. Charcoal has been in use for hair treatment in precolonial Ghana for many centuries. Considering the intense heat coupled with dust particle in Ghana and other African countries, the use of charcoal as hair treatment helped to protect their hairs from dust build up, dirt, oil and sebum that settled on scalp and negatively affects hair quality and growth. It implies that charcoal promotes hair growth. The natural hair colourant used in this process armours the hair with lustre and protection against bacteria and fungi. It nourishes the scalp and protects it from dandruff infections and maintains the hair’s natural moisture level. The eye lashes are also darkened to complement the facial look of a wearer.

   

  The haircut helps to focus on the facials of a wearer since the hair receives little or no elaborate ornamentation. Usually, queen mothers who wear this hairstyle are not supposed to wear earrings during possessions or durbars. Judging from the benefits of charcoal in natural hair treatment it is not surprising that it features as essential ingredient in modern cosmetics manufacturing.

   

  The dansinkran hairstyle serves as a socio-cultural barometer, political signifier and as a religious marker. This hairstyle help to identify queen mothers and female kings from other females. It is a symbolic hairstyle that was a preserve of the Akan feminine chiefdom and royals. Some priestesses also wear this hairstyle. Politically, the hairstyle symbolises authority, royalty and power of a female king or queen mother. In this sense, the hairstyle is status-defining in terms of the social rank. It is considered as inevitable lifestyle heritage that needs to be preserved among the chiefdom. When a king or chief passes on, a queen mother who is not wearing that hairstyle is not allowed to pay homage to him/her.

   

  In the case of queen mothers, they complement this hairstyle with a feminine Ghanaian fashion classic named queen mothers’ style. This classic consists of a wraparound fashion of a six-yard fabric that stretches from the chest regions to beyond the knee, which is accentuated by another six-yard fabric draped in toga style. The wearing of this classic in addition to the hairstyle has bestowed onto it, the name dansinkran, hence, both the hairstyle and the classic are named as such. Despite the symbolism of the hairstyle, it now worn by the youth in contemporary times. It has acquired the name sweat. The only difference is that the youth who wear the hairstyle do not apply the charcoal mixture on their hairs. It has become unisex hairstyle among the youth.

   

  The Western hair superiority politics could not erode the many centuries old hair identity visual code and marker that characterised the majority of the chieftaincy institutions in Ghana. As a traditional lifestyle culture that has proved unyielding despite black hair discrimination and politics, it is an important tool in the decolonisation of Afrocentric hair beauty culture practice and education.

   

  References

  • Akan Women’s Hairstyle. (2008). Retrieved from https://www.abibitumi.com/community/culture/akan-womens-hairstyles/
  • Akrase, N. (2008). Pomp, power and majesty. Retrieved from http://akrase.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

   

   

  published March 2020

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  Bea Lundt

  The picture of Christine de Pizan and our knowledge about her life show that this is not true. Christine de Pizan (1364 – c. 1429), born as Cristina da Pizzano in Venice, was a poet and author at the court of King Charles VI of France. Christine produced a large number of vernacular works, in both prose and verse. Her works include political treatises, mirrors for princes, epistles, and poetry.

  This very famous miniature is an illustration from a book, handwritten in the years between 1410 and 1414 and preserved at the British Library in London (Harley MS 4431, Vol. 1, fol. 4 r). This manuscript contains texts by Christine de Pizan and is called The Book of the Queen, as it had been produced on behalf of and dedicated to Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of King Charles VI of France. There is another miniature showing Christine on her knees dedicating the book to the French queen. Christine can be identified by her facial features and style of dress.

  

  Detail of: Master of the Cité des Dames and workshop, 1413 - 1414, parchment, 36,5 cm x 28,5 cm, British Library, London. © British Library, London. Photo: the author

   

  In the centre of the aforementioned picture, a woman is shown sitting at a table and writing into a voluminous book. With her left hand, she is erasing coloured letters with a knife and with her right hand correcting them. This dynamic gesture of self-correcting fills her working situation with life. On her head is a headdress typical for a widow, the guimpe/wimple. Around the desk, we see some fictive architecture with a broad symbolic meaning: it shows a room which is specifically tailored to an intellectual working woman but also opens to the outside, as there are windows, an arch, and entryways. The roof of another storey marks the building as a town house. Though the scene is an interior one, the colours on the woman are bright, and there are warm red colours around her. This is different from older pictures showing clerical female authors in the narrow, closed rooms of a cloister.

   

  ‘Je, Christine’: An independent author defining her role in society

  The picture shows a professional female author in an urban context in the process of writing a book and working for the public, where she is honoured as being part of the highest level of society. There are similar pictures with Christine sitting behind her desk with an open book and people coming and arguing with her in a lively manner. In one, a young man, who has been identified as her son, stands in front of her and speaks to her. Another one shows four men visiting her in her room and discussing her writings with her. Sitting Christine, standing men: the arrangement shows that the guests will leave soon. Such encounters are also atypical for a cloister, which is said to be the usual space for educated women.

   

   

   

  Detail of: Master of the Cité des Dames and workshop, 1413 - 1414, parchment, 36,5 cm x 28,5 cm, British Library, London. © British Library, London. Photo: the author

   

  As experts see it, it was Christine herself who ordered the illustrator to characterise her in this manner. Several autobiographical comments of hers document that she liked to show herself living this individualist intellectual lifestyle. Traditional scholars call this typical for the Renaissance, which began a bit after Christine’s lifetime. Very often in her books we find ‘Je, Christine’ (‘I, Christine’), at the beginning of a chapter.

   

  Christine’s life story

  Christine was born in Venice in 1364 as the daughter of a doctor of medicine and astrology. He was called to the French court in Paris. Christine married a royal secretary and had three children. But then her father, her husband, and the king who had supported the family died. Christine was 25 years old and had to care not only for her children but also for her old mother and younger relatives living with her. She decided not to marry again but to support her living by writing. Her oeuvre contains poems alongside utopian, philosophical, historian, didactical, allegorical, and autobiographical texts. Noble families ordered her books and paid her well. In her old age, she escaped from the civil war in Paris to a cloister nearby where she died around 1429.

   

  The first secular female author in Europe

  With her Italian-French background, Christine is an example for the migration of intellectuals in southern Europe in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. She was not herself noble but came from an academic family and remained near the court. She was privately educated, mostly by her father, and also educated herself using the offer of the erudition centre in France. Living within a totally Christian cosmos with a spiritual way of thinking, she was not a clerical but rather a secular woman. In her books, she fought for gender equality, especially in education, as well as for recognizing the extraordinary performances of women in the past and in her own time. She wanted this knowledge to be part of a new understanding of history. She sharply protested against texts which reduce women to sex objects. With her pugnacious notes, she provoked the first literary quarrel about femininity and masculinity in Europe, the ‘Querelle des Femmes’.

   

  The masculinisation of literacy and education in the modern era

  In premodern Europe, competencies in literacy were considered more or less ‘feminine’. Girls learned to read at least the Bible to their families; noblewomen were taught languages and literature to be able to marry into different countries. The ideal for masculinity was fighting strength; sitting with books seemed to be viewed as non-masculine. Many kings and noblemen were illiterate. This changed in modern times. Literacy became part of the public world and school education developed as a privilege of men.

  In the colonial period, Europeans attempted to impose this central European order on the African colonies: women were relegated to the private sphere, while men had the privilege of acting in public, which was more valued. The colonisers argued these gender roles were anthropologically fixed constancies, and they had the civilising mission of transferring this pattern to their colonies. But African scholars insist that in precolonial times, polar structures of different worlds for men and women did not exist, exactly as they had not in premodern Europe.

   

  Conclusion: Confirming non-dualistic, fluid gender concepts

  As we still need to fight against the discrimination of women and girls in educational systems worldwide, the message of the picture might be encouraging. This visual icon helps to deconstruct a common myth about Europe and to reject static ideas about continuities of bipolar gender structures. Even in the European Middle Ages, independent female authors were shown, combining inside and outside worlds. To see that it was different in history motivates us to see the hybridity of gender structures on both continents, which do not merely follow the dualistic scheme of men working in public professions and women working as housewives.

   

  References:

  • Christine de Pizan: Le Livre de la Cité des Dames. Stock 1986 (French).
  • Christine de Pizan: The Book of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics) rev. 2000 (English).
  • Christine de Pizan: Das Buch von der Stadt der Frauen. Originally in Middle French. Translated and with commentary and an introduction by Margarete Zimmermann, Orlanda Buchverlag Berlin 1986, dtv 1999 (German).
  • Roberta L. Krueger: Towards Feminism: Christine de Pizan, Female Advocacy, and Women’s Textual Communities in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond. In: Judith M. Bennett, Ruth Mazo Karras (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. Oxford University Press 2016, pp. 590-606.
  • Henry Kam Kah: The Sacred Forest. Gender and Matriliny in the Laimbwe History (Cameroon), c. 1750-2001. Berlin 2015.
  • Oyewumi, Oyeronké: Colonizing Bodies and Minds. Gender and Colonialism. In: ibid (ed.): Invention of Women. Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis, MN 1997, pp. 121-156.

   

   

  Edited by Kelly Thompson.

   

  published August 2020

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• 

  Karin Guggeis

  Objects from the Global South in early collections of the Global North often lack any information about their specific local context. This is also true for this wooden sculpture made from a single block of hard wood, carved with different figures and forms on two sides and painted with natural colours in red, white and black. It was acquired in 1893 by the “Royal Ethnographic Collection” (Königlich Ethnographische Sammlung) in Munich, today the Museum Fünf Kontinente. No specific information about its geographic origin, its producers, users or use was documented in the inventory book. “Huge four-edged block, 1.80 high made of heavy wood, double-sided carved with human figures and lizards, heavily damaged by termites” is the only information recorded. The wooden block was sent from “Cameroon” (Kamerun) which is therefore documented as its region of origin. It was given to the museum as a present by Max von Stetten, a colonial officer in the German colony.

   

  The post gained a new layer of significance through its inclusion in the almanac “The Blue Rider” (Der Blaue Reiter), one of the most famous and important publications on art in the early 20th century in the Global North. The almanac was edited in 1912 by two artists based in the environs of Munich, Franz Marc and the Russian Wassily Kandinsky. They designed the publication as a starting point for a new epoch of art, rejecting academic art and encouraging new forms of artistic expression. Thus, Kandinsky and Marc included reproductions of different non-canonical art forms, such as artworks from the Middle Ages, folk art, art made by children – and non-Western artworks, in those days called “art of the primitives” (Kunst der Primitiven), among them this sculpted block from Cameroon. In this way, the editors of the almanac aimed to break down the hierarchies between art forms from different times, regions and levels of professional skill, and to expand the canon of art in the Global North.

   

  The editors’ fascination with non-European art had different roots: Wassily Kandinsky was a trained ethnographer and often visited ethnographic museums. Franz Marc, since his visit to the ethnographic museum in Berlin in 1911, especially admired sculptures from Cameroon. Thus Marc included a photograph of this wooden block to illustrate August Macke’s article “The Masks” (Die Masken). Marc captioned the picture simply “Cameroon” (Kamerun), its known geographic origin, and the country whose sculptures he admired.

   

  

   Fig 1: Almanac "Der Blauer Reiter" (page 58-59)

   

  In his article, the artist Macke stressed that for Africans their “idols” (Idole), as he called their sculptures, were a “visible expression of an invisible idea”, “a personification of an abstract term”. He also stressed the equality of the art forms from different times and regions. For example, Macke valued bronze works from the kingdom of Benin, in what is today Nigeria, and other ethnographic works, because they are just as expressive as a grave marker in the cathedral at Frankfurt. To demonstrate this non-hierarchical attitude to art from different regions and times, Marc and Kandinsky placed two photographs side by side on a double page in the almanac – on one side the Gothic figure of a knight, and on the other a bronze plaque showing a soldier from the kingdom of Benin, which also was in the collection of the Munich ethnological museum by then (Fig 1).

   

  The later fame of the almanac, and of its publishers Kandinsky and Marc as artists, led to the wooden sculpture being named “The Blue Rider Post” in the narrative of the museum.

   

  It is significant for global art history dominated by the Global North that, in contrast to our broad knowledge in respect of the European admirers of this object, very little is known about its original local context in the Global South. The state of our knowledge concerning its producer(s), its patron(s), its use, its specific place of origin, the meaning of special forms, colours, figures or gestures sculptured is poor. There are two reasons for this. First, in the Global North, there has been little interest in investigating its local context. Second, it is actually very difficult to carry out such investigations in respect of such badly documented early works in ethnological museums. To unfold these difficulties: the common method used to trace the local context of poorly recorded works is to look for stylistic similarities and ethnological background information concerning comparable objects in other collections or publications. Spending long periods doing fieldwork in the place of origin is too time- and money-consuming, as there are numerous badly recorded objects, especially in the early ethnological collections. Moreover, in the Forest region of East Cameroon, the assumed place of origin, there are numerous small ethnic communities which have been inadequately studied. Thus the poor results of previous research in the Global North are the following: The sculpted post is valued as unique in ethnological and art publications. Only single figures and their gestures show similarities with a few other objects in collections of the Global North. The current suggested origin of this carved work in view of these stylistic similarities is among the Lundu or Mbo people in the Forest region in East Cameroon. There it was probably used in a cult.

   

  A new approach has been made possible by a provenance research project of the Museum Fünf Kontinente, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art. In collaboration with scholars from Cameroun and the presumed source communities, members of the project are exploring the provenance and the local context of this special Cameroonian wooden block, as well as the whole collection from the German colony of Cameroon donated by Max von Stetten to the museum between 1893 and 1896. Hopefully the blank sheet regarding the original context of this wooden block will be filled.

   

  For comparison, also read Patrique deGraft-Yankson's analysis of this object here.

   

  The post in the context of the the repatriation discourse: Link

   

  References

  • Eisenhofer, Stefan (2009): Kulthauspfosten (?). In: Bujok, Elke (ed.): Der Blaue Reiter und das Münchner Völkerkundemuseums. Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München, Hirmer, München. S. 16-18
  • Erling, Katharina (2000): Der Almanach Der Blaue Reiter. In: Hopfengart, Christine (ed.): Der Blaue Reiter. Bremen, Köln. S. 188-240.
  • Kecskési, Maria (1999): Skulptierter Holzblock. In: Kecskési, Maria (Hg.): Kunst aus Afrika. Museum für Völkerkunde München. Prestel, Munich, London, New York. S. 116.
  • Kecskési, Maria (1982): Zwei beschnitzte Holzblöcke. In: Kecskési, Maria (ed.): Kunst aus dem Alten Afrika. Pinguin, Innsbruck. S. 238-239, 72.
  • Macke, August (1912): Die Masken. In: Kandinsky, Wassily/ Marc, Franz: Der Blaue Reiter. Piper, Munich. S. S. 53-59.
  • Marc, Franz and Kandinsky, Wassily (eds) (1912): Der Blaue Reiter. Piper. Munich.

   

   

  published March 2020

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• 

  Annette Schemmel

   

  The photo at hand was shot in Paris in the 1920s. We are looking at a beautiful young woman with very fair skin who seems to have sunken her head on a table as if for a rest, while her left hand is carefully exposing a polished mask made from dark wood. The woman is Kiki de Montparnasse alias Alice Prin (1901 – 1953), Man Ray’s lover, a model for many painters and herself a successful artist. Supposedly, Kiki was central for the myth of the Montparnasse as an artistic enclave in Paris.³ The mask is simply “African” in the eyes of my pupils at first. I want them to learn that we are looking at a portrait mask⁴ of the Baule people in Ivory Coast. Pupils should also understand that such carved portraits served to honor an important member of a Baule society, a woman in this case. A dancer wearing a similar mask would incorporate the portrayed notable at the occasion of ritual dances, thus celebrating her achievements.⁵ This specific mask’s features are balanced and dignified, harmonious but not realistic, a point to which I will come back later.

   

  Meanwhile I shall argue that Man Ray’s picture thrives on carefully staged contrasts. The title that has come to stick with this photograph hints not only at black-and-white photography itself, but also at the most obvious contrast, at the White and Black⁶ skin or surface of the picture’s protagonists. Yet there are further opposites linking the lady and the mask in the picture, namely the opposites of young, ultra-modern and lively versus ageless, “primitive” and inanimate, matt versus shiny, skin versus wood, a seemingly passive woman versus the upright face of the mask, holding versus being kept. The photo historian Wendy Grossman has described how these opposites relate: “Almost as if it were a direct cast, the vertical mask, with its shiny black patina, is a negative mirror image of the reclining model’s ovoid face, echoing her pursed lips, closed eyes, and tautly styled coiffure. Parallel symmetrical shadows extend beneath the two perpendicular forms, coupling face and mask in a shallow and austere space.”⁷

   

  Clearly, Man Ray has smartly staged the Black and the White. By the time he shot this picture, Man Ray was making a living of object photography in Paris, then the world capital of fashion. It might therefore come as no surprise that this picture made its first appearance in an early print medium dedicated to beauty and fashion, the Vogue magazine. When the issue came out in 1926, everything “exotic” was fashionable in Paris, especially arts from (indirect) African origin, such as Jazz, Josephine Baker or, well, the mask in Man Ray’s photograph.⁸

   

  Beyond its uncontested fashionable appeal “Noire et Blanche” unveils some deeper, more unsettling meanings, some of which I intend to unfold here. A simple reading is ready at hand if one places this artwork in the historical context of the colonial era. In 1926, the mask’s country of origin belonged to Afrique Occidentale Française. On this backdrop, the dreamy woman holding the mask in Man Ray’s picture appears to be a Freudian slip in the form of a photograph, an unconscious idealization of colonial domination. Are we looking at a personification of the imperial power of France carefully embracing its colony Ivory Coast?⁹

  Next, we could follow a feminist lead towards interpretation. This photograph stages two females, whilst an important third actor of this mise-en-scène is invisible, the male photographer. Through his camera, the male artist is looking at the passive naked woman und at the artefact of a culture that is foreign to him. Obviously, the mask has become passive, too, once removed from its original context. In this reading, Man Ray’s photograph appears as a staging of the desire for submission – the submission of the idealized female and that of the cultural “other”. As viewers, we are lured into this voyeuristic pleasure, unless we take some critical distance.

   

  Following a suggestion of some South African colleagues, we shall now look at this photograph through the lens of the Martinican author Franz Fanon. In his famous psychoanalytical text “Peau noire, masques blancs”, Fanon is pointing at the phenomenon of the essentializing construction of a Black soul (“l’âme noir”).¹⁰ Following Fanon, Man Ray’s photograph can be considered one of those efforts by European (and certain African) artists of the classic Modern era to catch hold of an imagined essence of Black culture. This effort needed to objectify Blackness in order to make this construct palpable and acceptable. Arguably, in “Noire et Blanche” the ’black soul’ lies in the hand of a white person and is reduced to an object, the sculpted mask. Furthermore, it could be argued with Fanon that Man Ray used the Blackness of the wooden object, the “noir” that is readily associated with the ‘continent of darkness’ in the collective imagination of Westerners,¹¹ in order to highlight his girl-friend’s Whiteness. We know that contrasts help at intensifying and it is no secret that White is a color (of skin) that Europeans tend to associate with innocence and purity.¹² Arguably, this racialized contrast of the “Noire” and the “Blanche” served to celebrate qualities that Man Ray projected onto Kiki de Montparnasse, his partner.

   

  So far, I have tried to make clear that the artwork “Noire et Blanche” is not only a showcase of female attractivity, but that this photo also has a violent dimension to it because it relies on certain colonial mechanisms of distinction. As an art teacher, it is my ambition to make this picture’s ambivalence understandable for my pupils. I know that pupils are more likely to learn if they are allowed to make their own discoveries,¹³ for instance by exploring ‘real’ scientific data through the Internet. From our classroom, we can access the Metropolitan Museum’s online collections, which include a comparable portrait mask.

   

  

   

  Website of the Metropolitan Museum, New York

   

  Other than the black-and-white photograph by Man Ray, the museum’s more recent color picture unveils the fine shades of brown and red tones that are characteristic of the tropical wood used for Baule masks. Obviously, such masks are not Black in reality. Furthermore, pupils can learn from the provenance info that the Baule mask in the Met’s collection was famous amongst art lovers and artists in Paris and Berlin already before WW1.¹⁴ This insight helps to understand why Man Ray might have chosen a similar object for his photograph: artists tend to learn from each other.

   

  As a continuation, I like to encourage my pupils to sum up the museum’s text about the characteristics of portrait masks by the Baule by means of notes in German language. In doing so, the learners realize that these masks are carved according to a complex canon of beauty, that the forehead is high for a reason, namely in order to represent intelligence, that the polished surface signifies good health and that a representation of a person can convey dignity even if the proportions of its face have been exacerbated. This is new to many youngsters, whose frustration with their own efforts at realistic drawing has shaped their preference for artists’ realistic skills. Pupils also learn from the online information that this mask can only be brought to live as part of a performance, thus discovering a problematic aspect of its preservation in a museum.

   

  Coming back to “Noire et Blanche” with this new knowledge, my pupils realize that Man Ray’s photograph is concealing much of the knowledge that is available today. They understand that it is worthwhile to research background information for non-European art, even if this requires leaving their textbooks behind and going an extra mile with their foreign language skills. In the course of the classroom discussion that follows we are wondering why a Baule community would have let go of their precious mask, a question leading to recent restitution debates.¹⁵ Furthermore, the teenagers understand that the coquettish presentation of the mask in the hands of a naked European woman might be read as a sign of lacking respect by members of its culture of origin. At this point of the discussion some pupils have experienced a change of perspectives. This experience of assuming a position previously perceived as ‘other’ in the course of a lesson is the very purpose of our engagement with this artwork at school, arguably it is also the purpose of looking at art altogether.

   

  Let me summarize this approach. Comparing Man Ray’s photograph “Noire et Blanche” with the mask from the Metropolitan museum’s collection is a way to scrutinize a canonical picture from a critical perspective without denying the aesthetic appeal of the historic photograph. By way of this lesson I hope to enable changes of perspective and to build sensibility for post-colonial readings of pictures amongst pupils. Taking a bold stance, I shall claim that such lessons are conducive to a more general type of visual competence because I like to think that my pupils’ experience with the implications of this attractive historic picture might encourage them to also critically scrutinize any other picture in the future.

   

   

   

  References

   

  [1] For a thorough photo-historical analysis read Wendy A. Grossmans insightful article “Unmasking Man Ray’s Noire et blanche”, American Art, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 134-47.

  [2] For instance, Man Ray is mentioned in the widely used text-book Epochen der Kunst. Von der Moderne zu aktuellen Tendenzen (Hsg: Robert Hahne, Oldenburg Schulbuchverlag GmbH, 2013, S. 150/51). In this book, information about him and the photo “L’Enigne d’Isidore Ducasse” (1920) are featured under the header of „Fotografie und Film im Surrealismus“. It can be argued that „Noir et Blanche“ is surrealistic as well, since it seems to be illustrating Lautréamonts famous phrase “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella” (Lautréamont alias Isidore Lucien Ducasse, „Die Gesänge des Maldoror“, 1874.), with Man Ray’s “chance meeting” bringing together a white woman and a wooden mask.

  [3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Prin (last accessed on August 26, 2019).

  [4] Wendy A. Grossman’s article “Unmasking Man Ray’s Noire et blanche leaves no doubt that the mask in the picture is actually an airport art version of a Baulé mask, by the way (p. 136).

  [5] Collection Records of the Metropolitan Museums (Baulé Masken), www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/317834 ((last accessed on May 3rd, 2017), also https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319512 (last accessed on August 26, 2019)

  [6] In this text, I will spell Black and White with capitals in order to highlight the cultural construct of Race.

  [7] For the complex history of the title see Wendy A. Grossman, “Unmasking Man Ray’s Noire et blanche”, pp.140.

  [8] More about this fashion in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker (last accessed on August 26, 2019).

  [9] Research on Man Ray does not support this easy hypothesis however. In Wendy A. Grossman’s article from 2006, the origin of the photograph is described as an open-ended artistic process partly sparked by commercial interest, partly by a collaborator, but not by political intention. However, I would like to argue that art works tend to transmit more or less unconscious convictions of their authors and their peers, which makes of  artworks valuable witnesses of their times.

  [10] Frantz Fanon, “Schwarze Haut, weiße Masken”, translated by Eva Moldenhauer, Wien: Turia + Kant, 2013, p. 14, 147.

  [11] Fanon makes this point in “Schwarze Haut, weiße Masken” (2013), p. 158.

  [12] “Symbolik der Farben, Formen, Zahlen” in Lexikon der Kunst, Bd. VII. S. 153-154, E.A. Szeemann Verlag, Leipzig 1994.

  [13] I am here referring to pupils from eleventh grade of the Bavarian Gymnasium, whom the syllabus obliges to explore aspects of the body in art during half a year.

  [14] Collection Records of the Metropolitan Museums (Baule masks), www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/317834 ((last accessed on May 3rd, 2017), also https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319512 (last accessed on August 26, 2019)

  [15] For a thorough introduction to this question read Felwine Sarr’s and Bénédicte Savoy’s “restitution report” commissioned by the French state. http://restitutionreport2018.com/ (last accessed on April 1, 2020).

   

   

  published April 2020

  Sound track / Hörimpuls Man Rays Noire et Blanche, 2018 (Schemmel): Link

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• 

  Stefan Eisenhofer

  In 1971, El Loko moved to Germany to study sculpture, painting and graphics with Joseph Beuys, Rolf Crummenauer and Erwin Heerich at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he graduated as a master student in 1977. He created woodblock prints, sculptures, installations, drawings, graphics, photographs, paintings and performances in almost four decades, using an extremely wide range of working techniques and forms of expression. El Loko participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions on several continents and his work has been widely published. In addition, he repeatedly organised workshops for artistic and intercultural exchange in Europe and Africa.

   

  El Loko, who lived and worked in Cologne (Germany) until his death in 2016, was one of the first African artists to venture into the art worlds of the West. His autobiographical book "Der Blues in mir" (The Blues in Me) - published in 1986, written in German and illustrated with woodcuts by the author - vividly recounts how he had to fight for and invent his identity and his path as a human being and artist at that time.

   

  In Germany, El Loko experimented from 1972 onwards primarily with woodcuts before turning to painting in the mid-1980s. His series "Landschaften" (Landscapes), which interspersed colourful architectural elements with human faces, bodies and body parts and aesthetically dealt with the theme of threat, confusion and alienation in an urban context and how to overcome them, subsequently gained great popularity.

   

  Subsequently, it became characteristic of El Loko that, for all the diversity of his work, he took up certain themes almost cyclically. His series of works "World Faces", "Cosmic Letters" and "Figure Landscapes" played a special role here, which he reinterprets again and again, seeking different perspectives and positions. Through a non-hierarchical treatment of the face or the bust portrait, the "World Faces" convey the vision's striving to abolish the differences between people of different origins, world views and gender. A utopian striving for a universal language and a global identity manifests itself in his series of works "Cosmic Letters", in a sense an alphabet of his own characteristic visual language. In paintings and pigmented steles made of wood and steel, El Loko combines ornaments, figurations, signs and ciphers of different origins and strives, by means of this symbolic sign language, for an art language that can be understood worldwide and for the construction of a meaningful world of his own.

   

  Inspired by Joseph Beuys and the dissolution of the conventional bourgeois concept of art, El Loko also turned to temporary art actions from 1976 onwards. He developed his "duel performances", which combined poetry, song and drum rhythms and were characterised by the principle of rhetorical surprise and immediate reaction to each other.

   

  In his installations, El Loko deals primarily with Western images of Africa and clichés in an often provocative manner. In his popular work "How to explain pictures to a pack" (1995), he ironically takes up Joseph Beuys' action "How to explain pictures to a dead hare" (1965): A gathered pack of 70 animals stands in front of a map of Africa hanging on the wall, composed of various elements and symbols like a puzzle. With this installation, El Loko not only posed questions about images of Africa, but also traced his own situation at the same time: The pack as the world that lies outside of him looks on the one hand expectantly, on the other hand more or less uncomprehendingly at him as an artist. In "The eternal mask" (2006), the artist painted 50 portrait photos of Africans with acrylic, alluding to Western views of African people: Through the disfiguring colour, the faces lose their individuality, become anonymous and frightening. In his work "Africa down", partly done in Cologne (Germany) and finished in Cape Town (South Africa), El Loko addresses the positions of Africans in the world. The visitors to the exhibition were forced to walk on 256 photos of Africans and 53 African national flags lying on the floor, through which the artist makes the oppression and devaluation of Africa and its people through colonialism and through corrupt, selfish and ignorant African rulers almost physically comprehensible. His provocative installation "Mohrenköpfe - Hohlköpfe" (2005), which questions the role of kleptomaniac politicians of black skin colour who systematically ruin their own continent and do not care about cultural matters or the economic or social development of their countries, aims in a similar direction. As in all his works, El Loko was not interested in simplistic answers or accusations, but in a serious examination of painful and uncomfortable topics as well.

   

   

  
  Image 1: Vogelakrobatik, 1996, 250x30x20 cm //  Image 2: PE.VO.TO.7, EL Loko, 2017, 135x99 cm  //  Image 3: El Loko at Museum Fünf Kontinente (Karin Guggeis, El Loko, Stefan Eisenhofer)  //  Image 4: Dokponou (Der Gescheiterte - The failed), El Loko, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 80x120 cm.  //  Image 5: Vogelakrobatik, 1996, 250x30x20, Museum Fünf Koninente, Munich. All images: Copyright Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich.

  

  Ibrahima Sene

  El Loko - Migration, resistance and the circulation of knowledge

   

  In Western modernity, time is often conceived as a linear progression—clearly divided into past, present, and future. This conception structures not only individual life trajectories but also institutional and political imaginaries. Yet, across many religious and spiritual traditions—be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or various African cosmologies—time is not necessarily a fixed chronology. Rather, it is a dynamic, layered continuum in which the boundaries between past, present, and future are porous. In such worldviews, the dead do not merely belong to the past; they remain active presences, situated in a time ahead of us. We walk toward them. In this sense, the deceased possess a temporality that exceeds linear sequence—they remember, they anticipate, and they guide.

   

  It is within this framework that the work of El Loko (1950–2016) continues to resonate. His life and artistic practice offer an enduring voice on questions of migration, identity, and the ongoing legacies of colonialism. Though physically absent since 2016, his presence persists—both as a historical figure and as a visionary of possible futures. In a world increasingly marked by identity-based closures and a renewed denial of the Other, his trajectory offers a powerful counterpoint: an invitation to reimagine belonging, movement, human difference – all within the framework of migration.

   

  This contribution proposes a return to El Loko’s oeuvre from a literary and historical perspective. His work—spanning visual arts, literature, and intellectual engagement—creates spaces of reflection where the migrant experience is not reduced to moments of departure or arrival. Instead, migration emerges as a temporal rupture: a lived experience of dislocation, memory, anticipation, and transformation. In this light, the struggle against racism is not only a social or political endeavor but also a confrontation with hegemonic temporalities.

   

  El Loko’s artistic practice documents and contests the historical fractures experienced by African migrants in Europe, while simultaneously gesturing toward alternative epistemologies. His paintings, graphic works, and writings become acts of resistance and remembrance—counter-archives that preserve erased histories and imagine new futures. Through his work, we are reminded that art is not merely a reflection of time, but a mode of temporal intervention. It gathers the dead, the living, and the not-yet-born into a shared, contested space of meaning.

   

  Biographical background

  Born in Pédakondji (Togo) in 1950, El Loko studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1971 after training in Accra – under Joseph Beuys, among others. However, his artistic career in Germany was interrupted in 1978 when he was refused permanent residency. His return to Togo marked the beginning of a transcultural oeuvre that is situated between Africa and Europe, art and politics, biography and society. In an interview with Manfred Loimeier, El Loko describes how his artist's name developed from his initials:

  “Please explain how you came to call yourself EL Loko?

  EL Loko is my real name, I just changed it slightly. My name is Edoh Lucien Loko. If you take the two first names, you have E and L and then Loko. That's exactly what it says in my passport. At first I started writing E.L., but at some point both letters asked: "Why should we stand alone? We're moving in together." That's how E.L. became EL.”^[1] (Loimeier 2012, 165-166).

   

  El Loko’s choice of name is itself a statement—a gesture toward a philosophy of togetherness and connection. As he himself explained, the name refers not only to the link between letters but also to a broader principle of unity: a weaving of identity, community, and interrelation. Yet, as Susanne Gehrmann (2004) has noted, the name also evokes the notion of madness—la folie—a theme frequently present in artistic and literary traditions. This “madness” should not be dismissed as pathological; rather, it marks a form of social marginality that enables acute perception. From the fringes, the artist often sees most clearly the fractures and contradictions of the society that excludes him. In this sense, El Loko’s marginality (in German social context) becomes epistemological—a vantage point from which to critique dominant structures and imagine otherwise. He, seen as peripheral or subaltern, becomes the seer, the chronicler of the everyday.

   

  El Loko’s broader body of work—spanning over four decades and encompassing painting, literature, and graphic design—bears the traces of diasporic experience and migratory existence. His artistic production reflects not only physical movement between places but also a constant negotiation of cultural and epistemic borders. He emerges as an important figure within the postcolonial African intellectual landscape, offering aesthetic and philosophical responses to questions of identity, memory, and historical trauma. His work invites us to listen to voices from the margins—canine, mad, or exiled—and to reconsider who is permitted to speak, to see, and to remember.

   

  This broader inquiry into identity and displacement cannot be separated from the historical and political conditions shaping the African diaspora in Germany. El Loko’s personal and artistic trajectory is deeply intertwined with the lesser-known histories of African presence in postwar and postcolonial Germany—a presence marked by invisibility, marginalization, and resistance.

   

  African Diaspora in Germany

  The African diaspora in Germany and Europe has become a central topic of public debate, particularly due to the intensification of migration policies and the ongoing debates on cultural diversity and integration. In Germany and the EU in particular, the rise of far-right parties has strongly influenced political and social discourse. These debates often centre on the so-called ‘danger of migration’ and the assumed inability of certain migrant groups to integrate into society. These narratives, which often link migration and crime, shape the public image of migration and cultural diversity and contribute to social polarisation.

   

  In this context, however, the question also arises as to how present people with an African background are in Germany. Compared to the former colonial powers such as France, England and Belgium, their presence is significantly lower.  According to a census conducted in 2024 by the Statistisches Bundesamt (Mikrozensus - Bevölkerung nach Migrationshintergrund. Erstergebnisse 2023), around 1.27 million people of African origin live in Germany. This low number can be attributed to four main factors: (01) the short duration of the German colonial presence in Africa, (02) the low migration of Africans to Germany during the colonial period due to German colonial policy. This colonial policy is based on a concept of nation (03) that defines a unit by common descent, language, religion or geography. This refers to a nativist identity with a closed concept of ethnic groups and communities. This creates an exclusive understanding of belonging and demarcation. In contrast, France, for example, pursued an approach that is influenced by the idea that a nation is a community of will as well as a community of experience (Assmann 2006, 21; 41; 160). This view characterised French colonial policy and led to the policy of assimilation and association. The massive migration of African students or Africans to Paris, Marseille, etc. through the colonial school, for example, contributed to the formation of an African diaspora in France. (04) A fourth factor is guest worker and educational migration after the Second World War (Oguntoye 1997; Aitken & Rosenhaft 2013). While the African diaspora in France emerged largely from the colonial legacy, African migration to Germany was characterised by economic and educational cooperation between the two German states, the GDR and the FRG, and African countries (Kassé 1995). In the GDR and FRG, African students were sponsored in order to train future political elites for socialist or capitalist systems. In addition, labour, for example from Angola or Mozambique, was recruited to support the economic reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War (Schenck 2023).

   

  The concept of the ‘African diaspora’ in Germany therefore remains very heterogeneous. It includes people with different migration histories, including descendants of transatlantic enslavement, labour migrants, refugees and students, etc. Afro-Germans and African migrants have little political visibility and are hardly represented in central political institutions. Only recently has Germany begun to address its colonial legacy through debates on reparations and the renaming of streets - often initiated by diasporic and civil society organisations. This broader reckoning with Germany’s colonial past parallels the emergence of African migrant voices in literature, which began gaining momentum in the mid-1980s despite initial marginalisation.

   

  The first wave of African migration literature in Germany, which emerged in the mid-1980s, was primarily characterised by students who came to Germany for their academic education. However, their voices gained only limited public attention - a reflection of the historical invisibility, political marginalisation and colonial fading that characterise the African diaspora in Germany. These included Nsekuye Bizimana (Müssen Afrikaner den Weißen alles nachmachen? 1985), Aly Diallo (Die Täuschung, 1987) as well as El Loko, Chima Oji and Daniel Mepin.

   

  A second wave followed in the 1990s, in which African women increasingly made literary appearances. Examples of this are Amma Darko with Der verkaufte Traum (1991) and Philomène Atyamé with Abengs Entscheidung. Eine schwarz-weiße Liebe in Kamerun (2002). This phase also produced works by refugees and other students, including Thomas Mazimaka (Ein Tutsi in Deutschland: Das Schicksal eines Flüchtlings, 1997), Idrissa Keita (Der Wind bläst, 1994) and Osman Alimamy Sankoh (Ein Vermittler zwischen zwei Welten: Afrika und Deutschland, 1999). Authors such as André Ekama (Schwarzer sein im weißen Himmel, 2007) also thematised migration experiences and questions of identity. These works not only reflect personal experiences, but also scrutinise colonial structures and racist discrimination in Germany. They tie in with the political commitment of the former African diaspora (Diagne 2012).

   

  As early as the interwar period, African activists raised their voices and demanded equal rights in petitions. Organisations such as the African Aid Association in Hamburg campaigned for better living conditions in the Weimar Republic. These developments show that the debate about colonialism and migration on the part of the African diaspora is not a recent phenomenon, but can be traced back to long historical continuities.

   

  Literary work

  Among his literary production, the autobiographical novel Der Blues in mir (1986) (engl. The Blues in Me) remains the most cited and most central. The novel combines elements of poetry, documentary and personal reflection. In the work, El Loko uses the blues as a metaphor for the emotional turmoil of migrants in Germany, in particular the feeling of alienation, racism and the search for identity. Characterised by legal disputes and personal challenges in Germany, the work reinforces the emotional impact of the narrative (Daré 2015: 135). The Cuckoo's Egg Ahoba (2009) is little known. Just like the work Der Blues in mir, his novel also deals with themes such as loss of home, experiences of foreignness and the search for identity.

   

  El Loko deliberately combines different media in his literary texts, including official documents, woodcuts and newspaper cuttings, in order to convey his message more forcefully (Daré 2015: 135). This diversity of media forms a bridge between art and literature. His works function not only as an expression of personal experience, but also as a critical reflection on migration and intercultural challenges. In addition, they offer a cathartic function by not only documenting migration experiences, but also actively questioning and reinterpreting them (Diagne 2012, 144).

   

  El Loko’s work operates within what cultural theorist Homi K. Bhabha calls a “Third Space” – a hybrid zone where cultural meaning is not fixed but negotiated (Bhabha  1994). El Loko’s position within this Third Space enabled him to see and compare both Togolese and German societies from within and beyond. For El Loko, this meant refusing binary labels and instead embracing a fluid position between cultures, nations, and artistic traditions. By situating himself between Germany and Togo, between Beuys’ avant-garde and African visual systems, El Loko engages in a comparative reflection on societies: their values, exclusions, and imaginaries of the ‘Other’. El Loko turns these inherited comparisons into tools of critique. His works are not only personal narratives of displacement; they are decolonial interventions that call for alternative ways of imagining cultural coexistence and historical responsibility.

   

  Artistic and political resistance

  Resistance is a well-known attitude of authors of migration literature. Resistance does not simply mean being against, but rather asserting oneself and claiming one's place. Confronted with rejection and racism on a daily basis, El Loko – like many writers of this generation – epitomises this form of resistance. This is expressed in different ways - artistically, intellectually and existentially - and is reflected both in his work as a writer and artist and in his relationship with the German authorities and the German public. Many forms of resistance can be recognised in EL Loko's works.

   

  An essential form of his resistance was directed against the clichéd depiction of Africa in Western media and discourses. The stereotypical perception of the continent as a place of war, poverty, corruption and chaos represents a clear distortion of Africa's real socio-cultural diversity (Krems 2007, 18). Many writers, including El Loko, consciously distanced themselves from polarising identity attributions between ‘own’ and ‘foreign’. He saw it as his literary task to break through these entrenched and pejorative images of identity. For him, this resistance was not only an intellectual, but also a socio-cultural process that was intended to help migrants maintain their independence in the new society. Instead of reinforcing divisions, El Loko looked for ways to connect. He refused to be categorised even as a Togolese, African or German writer, but rather saw himself as a traveller who was in a constant dialogue with the world and nature. For many writers from diasporic or postcolonial backgrounds, this approach allows them to challenge dominant narratives and explore complex, hybrid identities shaped by migration, displacement, and global interconnectivity. By situating his work within this framework, he joins a global literary conversation that interrogates how histories, cultures, and experiences intersect beyond traditional borders.

   

  In addition to his artistic exploration of identity issues, resistance also became a political act for El Loko. A central theme of his work The Blues in Me is his personal conflict with the German authorities. His idealised image of Germany was severely shaken by his confrontation with the authorities. He had believed that decent and hard-working people did not have to worry about deportation - especially not if they came from Togo. But the reality was different: in a letter to the immigration authorities, he defended his artistic work as a bridge between cultures, but the answer was disappointing: his stay would contradict the development policy objectives of the Federal Republic of Germany. This rejection is exemplary of the structural difficulties faced by African migrants in Germany. El Loko therefore also used his work as a political statement against institutional injustices, reflecting the social challenges faced by migrants.

   

  El Loko also formally breaks through rigid narrative structures. In The Blues in Me, he combines texts, images and sculptures to create a multi-layered, hybrid narrative. This interweaving of media not only questions the boundaries of autobiography, but also reflects the fragmented experience of migration. El Loko integrates newspaper clippings, reports from immigration authorities and visual elements to open up different perspectives on his story.

   

  In addition to literature, El Loko also realised his resistance in the visual arts. He combined traditional African and modern Western forms of expression and created an art that was located in both African and European art traditions. His works not only served as a platform for representing African perspectives in Germany, but also as a challenge to hegemonic Western art norms.

   

  Knowledge circulation

  The debate on colonial history in Germany shows that the African diaspora plays a central role in coming to terms with colonial atrocities and their consequences. It has raised public awareness of the suppressed colonial past and brought the debate on these issues into social and academic discourse. In this context, the current critical debate on knowledge production from a decolonial perspective is becoming increasingly relevant. It calls for the deconstruction of Eurocentric knowledge systems and the recognition of African forms of knowledge that have been historically marginalised.

   

  El Loko contributes significantly to this debate and to the circulation of knowledge through his works. He integrates traditional African philosophies and narrative structures into his oeuvre, making it accessible to a wide audience. In his cosmograms, he visualises alternative knowledge systems that combine European and African traditions of thought. This intercultural approach questions colonial notions of knowledge and creates new approaches to African perspectives.

   

  The circulation of knowledge in this context takes place through various mechanisms: e.g. through oral traditions and memory transmission within diaspora communities, preserving and transmitting cultural knowledge; through literary and cultural translation and intertextuality. Art and literature serve as spaces for the transmission and transformation of knowledge by linking different experiences. Through his art, El Loko not only contributes to the preservation and transmission of traditional knowledge, but also creates hybrid forms of knowledge that combine African and Western knowledge. This illustrates that art and literature are essential platforms for the circulation of knowledge, bringing not only African but also global perspectives into dialogue with each other.

   

  El Loko's work is at the centre of a decolonial critique of the Eurocentric knowledge system. He integrates African ways of thinking, oral traditions and spiritual concepts into his texts and images. His so-called cosmograms epitomise this philosophy: as visual spaces of knowledge in which the past, present and future are not thought of in linear but cyclical terms. His art acts as a platform for the visualisation of marginalised knowledge and opens up new perspectives on memory, migration and global justice.

   

  Relevance and legacy

  At a time when migration and racism continue to be central themes of social debate, El Loko remains an important thinker whose productions point to both the challenges and the future of the African diaspora. He is more than a chronicler of the African diaspora – he is a mediator between worlds. His works call for a confrontation with colonial heritage, institutional racism and cultural self-empowerment. At a time when migration is being negotiated globally, his work remains highly topical: it calls for memories to be re-read – as a source of knowledge for a fairer future. His works call on us to learn from the past, to fight against the injustices of the present and to build a more just future. In this sense, El Loko's literary and artistic contributions have garnered significant recognition in Togo and across West Africa, where his works are celebrated for their profound exploration of identity, migration, and postcolonial legacies. Throughout his life, El Loko maintained a dual presence in both Togo and Germany, facilitating cultural exchange and dialogue between the two countries. His work has been also featured in various international exhibitions, including the Johannesburg Art Fair in South Africa, underscoring his influence in the broader African art scene. These platforms have amplified his voice, allowing his reflections on identity and belonging to reach a global audience. And when we understand migration as part of a shared history, we realise that racism is not just a problem of the present, but a structure that does not have to determine the future. The deceased, just like El Loko, are already part of this future. We can and should learn from his work and use these insights to shape a future in which we not only free ourselves from the mistakes of the past, but also focus on the knowledge of all those who came before us and the efforts of those who will come after us.

   

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  References

  • Daré, Gbandé. “La fusion du récit littéraire avec l’art, la presse et la correspondance administrative: Der Blues in mird’El Loko.” Créativité intermédiatique au Togo et dans la diaspora togolaise, edited by Susanne Gehrmann and Gilbert Dotsé Yigbe, LIT, 2015, pp. 135–158.
  • Diagne, Ibrahima, editor. Koloniale Vergangenheit und deutsch-afrikanische Erinnerungsorte = Passé colonial et lieux de mémoire germano-africaine. Mont Cameroun, no. 7, 2010.
  • Diagne, Ibrahima. “De la violence du passé au sens du vécu présent: Les survivances de la mémoire coloniale dans Lisahohé (2005) de Théo Ananissoh.” Mont Cameroun: Zeitschrift für deutsch-afrikanische interkulturelle Studien, edited by Albert Gouaffo and Salifou Traoré, vol. 7, 2010, pp. 31–47.
  • Diagne, Ibrahima. “Différenciation, hybridation et transposition du Je: Pratiques autobiographiques et écriture interculturelle dans la littérature de l'immigration africaine en Allemagne.” Conventions & Conversions: Generic Innovations in African Literatures / Innovations génériques dans les littératures africaines, edited by Susanne Gehrmann and Flora Veit-Wild, WVT, 2012, pp. 141–159.
  • Diagne, Ibrahima. “Kulturanthropologische Grundpositionen im schwarzafrikanischen Emigrationsdiskurs in Deutschland.” Mont Cameroun: Afrikanische Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Studien zum deutschsprachigen Raum, no. 6, 2009, pp. 11–27.
  • El-Tayeb, Fatima. Schwarze Deutsche: Der Diskurs um ‘Rasse’ und nationale Identität 1890–1933. Campus, 2001.
  • Gehrmann, Susanne, and Gilbert Dotsé Yigbe, editors. Créativité intermédiatique au Togo et dans la diaspora togolaise. LIT, 2015.
  • Gehrmann, Susanne. “Exil als äußerer und innerer Zustand: El Lokos autobiographische Erzählung Der Blues in mir.” Weltengarten: Deutsch-Afrikanisches Jahrbuch für Interkulturelles Denken, Revonnah Verlag, 2004, pp. 121–134.
  • Honeck, Mischa, et al., editors. Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250–1914. Berghahn Books, 2013.
  • Humboldt, Carmen. Afrikanische Diaspora in Deutschland: Eine explorative Studie zur Entstehung und Gegenwart transnationaler afrikanischer Communities in Köln und Umgebung. Logos-Verlag, 2006.
  • Loimeier, Manfred. Wortschätze: Interviews mit afrikanischen Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftstellern. Horlemann, 2012.
  • Loko, El. Der Blues in mir: Eine autobiographische Erzählung. Wuppertal, Verlag M. Krumbeck, 1986.
  • Loko, El. Mawuena: Gedichte und Holzschnitte. Erkrath, Franke Eigenverlag, 1983.

   

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  Endnotes

  ^[1] All translations from the original texts into English are my own. Original quote: „Erklären Sie bitte, wie es dazu kam, dass Sie sich EL Loko nennen? EL Loko ist mein richtiger Name, ich habe ihn nur leicht verwandelt. Ich heiße Edoh Lucien Loko. Wenn Sie die beiden Vornamen nehmen, haben Sie E und L und dann Loko. Genauso steht es in meinem Pass. Erst habe ich angefangen, E.L. zu schreiben, aber irgendwann haben beide Buchstaben gefragt: „Warum sollen wir allein stehen? Wir ziehen uns zusammen.“ So ist aus dem E.L. EL geworden.“ (Loimeier 2012, 165-166).

   

  Published August 2025

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  Ernst Wagner

   

  Based on the Ghanaian interpretation, it quickly became clear that certain ideological or political positions are immediately connotated with the respective image selection. These in turn are linked to historical and social experiences, which Winkler (2021) recently elaborated on the basis of the history of Germany. In our case, the West German, left-liberal intellectual milieu is of particular interest, since all the German project partners involved in the discussion can probably be assigned to such a milieu. "In the 1970s, the view prevailed among liberal and left-wing intellectuals in former West German, which objectively was not a nation state, did well to see itself as a >post-national democracy<. In the 1980s, this led to the conviction among many that the time of the nation state had passed and that Europe only had a future as a post-national union. [...] The self-destruction of one's own nation-state [in Nazi Germany - author's note] led to the conclusion that the nation-state as such had outlived its usefulness, and the term ‘national’ was equated with nationalist. [...] In Germany the idea that the nations had to merge into a European republic found a broader public echo." (Winkler 2020 p.186)

   

  For art educators, the majority of whom probably feel committed to this idea of Germany as a post-national democracy, the question of a current symbolisation of national unity^[1] is therefore obsolete. It cannot therefore be relevant to art education. A consensus in the German team on how at least the general topic could be addressed could be reached by the proposal to deal with the topic on another level, and to use Hans Haacke's installation "Der Bevölkerung" (2000, courtyard of the German parliament in Berlin) to deal with the topic of "national unity" in a contemporary art lesson.

   

  Hans Haacke (*1936) is a German-American artist who has lived and worked in New York since 1965 and whose conceptually influenced works primarily address art-political processes. 

   

  

  
  Figure 2: View into the courtyard of the Reichstag building. © Hans Haacke / VG Bild-Kunst. 

   

  Haacke's installation "Der Bevölkerung" is located in a courtyard of the Reichstag building. This architectural context is part of the work. The building was constructed at the end of the 19th century, during the Second German Empire (1871-1918). In neo-baroque style, it paid homage to the national pomp under emperor Wilhelm II. Damaged by fire in 1933, it was further damaged during the Second World War. Located directly on the Wall to East Berlin, the dome was finally blown up in 1954. In reunified Germany, however, a new function was found for the building. Rebuilt according to plans by Norman Foster in the 1990s, it now serves the German parliament, the Bundestag.

   

  

   

  Figure 3: View of the façade of the Reichstag building with the inscription "Dem Deutschen Volke" © Hans Haacke / VG Bild-Kunst. 

    

  Hans Haacke built a 21 x 7 metre rectangular, flat wooden enclosure in this building. He then asked the MPs to gradually fill it with soil from their respective home regions. In the middle of the box, the inscription "Der Bevölkerung" (To the People / Population) can be read, in white letters illuminated from the inside. The typeface corresponds to the inscription "Dem Deutschen Volke" (To the German People / Nation), which has been on the outside of the building's west portal since 1916.^[2] According to the initiator, the invitation to bring soil from the constituencies is valid as long as members are democratically elected to the German parliament. A webcam, belonging to the installation (www.bundestag.de), takes a picture every day at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and thus allows a take a look at the development of the project since 2000 and at the current situation.

   

  

   

  Figure 4: An MP distributes the home soil from his constituency in Haacke's installation. © Hans Haacke / VG Bild-Kunst

   

  When Haacke proposed to install this large-scale installation in the new parliament in 1999, ten years after German reunification, it triggered a heated public discussion. Many MPs found the words "Der Bevölkerung" (To the People / Population), which appeared to be a dedication, inappropriate and provocative. Haacke was deliberately alluding to the older inscription "Dem deutschen Volke" (To the German People / Nation) on the outer façade. In contrast to this, he used the term " Bevölkerung - population" to refer to all the inhabitants of Germany, including people who do not have German citizenship and live here. According to his own statement, Haacke was inspired by Bertolt Brecht when deciding on the lettering. Brecht had written in 1935 in exile that whoever said population instead of people would avoid many lies (Brecht 1935). Haacke is obviously also concerned with the question of how words can and should be used in the context of a national parliament to designate the basis of this democratically elected representation of the people/population. Does the term "Volk" fit, a traditional, conventional but loaded and perhaps not at all accurate term? Or would be the term "population" better, a word that sounds unfamiliar and strange at first, but perhaps makes more sense. The discussion intended on such questions is part of Haacke's work.

   

  Similar discussions were triggered by the idea of having MPs bring home soil. For many, this was reminiscent of the National Socialist blood-and-soil ideology. Or they criticised it as "kitsch" because of the well-intentioned but overused symbolism. Obviously, the work here plays with this iconographic tradition (“Heimaterde”), but reinterprets it just as it reinterprets the lettering. At the same time, the installation is constantly changing as a result - both through the ever-changing soil and through the growth of the plants over the course of the year.

  

   Figure 5: Screenshot of the project's website https://derbevoelkerung.de 

  © Hans Haacke / VG Bild-Kunst. 

   

  The installation is thus in constant dialogue with the population designated in the inscription, tries to involve the MPs and responds as a living piece of nature to the stone surroundings of the parliament building. The work of art is thus never fully completed. Haacke's art project was particularly controversial in parliament; only by a narrow majority did the MPs finally vote in favour of the realisation of the artwork in 2000 after a specially scheduled debate in the Bundestag. The entire debate is documented on the project's website - as another part of the work (Bundestagsdeabtte 2021).

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    [1]         I.e. a "small German" solution after 1990 and with shifted borders after 1945.

   [2]         It was designed by the Art Nouveau artist Peter Behrens.

   

   

  References

  • Brecht 1935: Bertolt Brecht. Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth. www.literaturwelt.com/werke/brecht/wahrheit.html (13.10.2021)
  • Bundestagsdeabtte 2021: https://derbevoelkerung.de/bundestagsdebatte/
  • Kaernbach 2011: Andreas Kaernbach. Projekt „DER BEVÖLKERUNG“ im Reichstagsgebäude. https://www.bundestag.de/besuche/kunst/kuenstler/haacke/haacke-198996 (13.10.2021)
  • Winkler 2020: Heinrich August Winkler. Wie wir werden, was wir sind - Eine kurze Geschichte der Deutschen. Munich (Beck)
  • Winkler 2021: Heinrich August Winkler. Das widerspruchsvolle Erbe des Otto von Bismarck. In: FAZ of 18.1.2021, p.6

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  Esther Kibuka-Sebitosi

  Rainbow Nation

  
  The rainbow in the Bible given in Genesis 9:16 is a reminder that we have a covenant with God not to destroy the earth again by floods. “I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the Covenant between Me and the earth,” says the Lord. God had made a covenant with Noah and his seed for generations. Genesis 9:9. And I, “behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you”. Since we are all Abraham’s seed, we are covered in this covenant, although Jesus makes a better covenant in the New Testament. Returning to the rainbow nation, this covenant is saying “ no more destructions”. It is as if God is saying we should no longer fight each other but live together in peace. He made us all people with different colours (rainbow).

  
  The metaphor describes a people with multi-cultures living together. The image of the flag is a symbol of togetherness or unity. The different colours. Adopted in 1994, the red, white and blue were adopted form the colours of the Boer Republic while the yellow, black and green were taken from the ANC (African National Congress) flag. The black colour is a symbol of the people; the green represents fertility of the land while the gold represents the wealth from minerals beneath the soil. The ANC adopted these colours way back in 1925.

   

  Associated with the flag is the national anthem. This is unique in that it has many languages:

   

  • Nkosi sikelel’ Afrika
  • Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo,
  • Yizwa imithandazo,
  • yethu,
  • Nkosi sikelela,
  • thina,
  • lusapho lwayo.
  • Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
  • O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeh
  • O se boloke (Ntate)
  • O se boloke
  • setjhaba sa
  • heso,
  • Setjhaba sa
  • South Afrika
  • – South Afrika.
  • Uit die blou van onse hemel,
  • Uit die diepte van ons see,
  • Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
  • Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
  • Sounds to call to come together,
  • And united we shall stand,
  • Let us live and strive for freedom,
  • In South Africa our land…

   

  Songwriter: Cornelius Jacob Langenhoven

   

  Summary

  The Rainbow metaphor is characteristic of a nation that aspires for peaceful living; building a peaceful nation. The symbol taken from the Bible donating the Noahic covenant reminds us that God will no longer send the floods to destroy us.

   

  The flag is a symbol of unity between the Boers and the African National Congress colours, which represents the whole of South Africa. It is a sign of hope and nation building.

  Associated with the Flag and the Rainbow nation is the National anthem. It is written in many languages signifying the rainbow nation of multi-cultures.

   

  References

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_nation
  • https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/africa/soafrica.htm

   

   

  published January 2020

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  UEW Team

  The Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu stool is a carved traditional wooden stool designed with an Akan symbol known as Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu (pronounced ‘fuun-tum-fu-ne-fu den-cheem-fu-ne-fu). This type of stool called asԑsԑgua in Fante (a dialect of Akan people from Ghana) is an art-cum-utilitarian object. It is basically composed of three main parts namely the animu (top) which is the seat; the mfinfinin (middle) which bears the design that gives identity to the stool; and the wiabour (base) which is the part that touches the ground and gives stability to the stool (Antubam, 1963; Amenuke, Dogbe, Asare & Ayiku, 1991). In this particular image, the middle portion, which is the focal consideration for this presentation, is created with the Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol.  The size of the stool is composed of a base that measures 53cm x 28cm, the top arc-shaped seat that gives the stool a length of 55cm and an overall height of 42.5cm.

   

  The stool was presented as a special gift to the Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), who doubled as the then Head of State, Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings by the Chiefs and people of Dormaa in the Bono Region of Ghana. It was brought to the Ghana National Museum through the State protocol in 1992. Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings led Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (A.F.R.C) to power through coup d’état on June 4, 1979 and prepared the grounds for the coming of the third republican constitution. In the same year, Dr. Hilla Limann was inaugurated as the president of the third republic after winning the election.  Rawlings returned to power on December 31, 1981 through another military takeover with his Provisional National Defence Council (P.N. D.C) of which he was the chair. Rawlings’ PNDC party stayed in power for almost eleven years before working out for the adoption of the Fourth Republican constitution through a referendum on April 28, 1992 (Essel, 2019). Subsequently, presidential election was held, which he led the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to win. Though the exact date he received the stool as a gift is unknown, it might have been received within 1981 to 1992, judging from the period of his military regimes and constitutional terms of office before the Ghana National Museum received the stool as part of its collections.

   

  The artist who carved this stool is anonymous. Within the context of the Ghanaian traditional creative work productions, this is not strange, since artworks produced in precolonial and traditional Ghanaian societies were hardly signed by the artists who produced them. This was because the artworks were communal, that is, they were produced for use by the community. The chiefs and kings had varied proficient artists in their courts or communities who produced artworks for the community. With the Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu stool being a special gift to the then president of the state, it might have been created by a revered and creative carving-artist in the Dormaa community.

   

  The Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol falls within tangible artistic creations which takes its name from the Akan expression for Siamese crocodile. Akan is a major Ghanaian language, which is spoken by about 48 percent of Ghana’s total population as first language, and by an additional 35 percent as additional first language or second language (2010 Population and Housing Census). The symbol derives its name from an Akan proverb which suggests that the Siamese crocodiles share a common stomach and yet struggle for food. Semantically, fun means stomach while funtum means ‘put together’ or ‘mixed together’.  Funtum also represents the rubber tree that produces a milky sticky substance used to glue items together. Fu-ne-fu (literally, ‘stomach and stomach’) represents two stomachs joined together. Dԑnkyԑm is crocodile. Dԑnkyԑmfunefu, therefore, means ‘two crocodiles with stomachs joined together’. On the other hand, funtum, as verb, also means ‘to stir something up with tension’, generally producing dust. This also draws attention to the struggle or the confusion that comes with the two crocodiles struggling to feed.

  

  Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol (Photo: the author)

   

  The Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol (see Figure above), is a graphical representation of two crocodiles rendered in silhouette in a perpendicular orientation with a conjoined and centred stomach, which is a common food receptacle. There are four juxtaposed arc-like lines interspersed and connected by four diagonal lines, creating a rhombic shape at the centre of the symbol. The four arc-shaped lines suggest the limbs, with the prominent sharp-tapered edges attached to the forelimbs placing emphasis on the cephalic regions. At a casual glance, the idealised limbs appear to be same in size, yet a close observation reveals that the forelimbs slightly outsize the hindlimbs. Two tadpole-shaped linearity with sharp-tapered edges placed perpendicularly to fuse with the limbs give a heightened impression of two reptile figures put together.

  The Akan expression fun, which is the stomach in the case of the Siamese crocodiles, has two levels of meaning in Akan worldview, the superficial and the hidden. The Siamese crocodiles have a common stomach yet the two heads scramble for food. Each tongue yearns to have a taste of the food, though the gulps of food consumed by each enter a common receptacle. The complexity of this allegorical image could also be found in its multifaceted cultural interpretations.

   

  Criteria for Selection (Educational Relevance & Quality)

  The Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol belongs to the family of Adinkra symbols. The symbols encapsulate the general Ghanaian philosophical thoughts and ideologies, cultural values, beliefs and practices. Its origin and first usage is traced to the Asante nation state, which is part of present day Ghana (Rattary, 1927). Its usage predates the 19^th century as recorded by Bowdich (1819).

  The multi-layered meaning of the Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol tells its usefulness and educational relevance in the Ghanaian society. Due to its historical, socio-cultural and national importance in Ghana, Adinkra features in the design of decorative and functional artworks. The Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol designed into carved wooden stool symbolises unity in diversity, democracy, shared destiny and female-male duality. Giving visual annotation to the idea of unity in diversity, the compositional structure of the Funtumfunefu-Dԑnkyԑmfunefu symbol shows formidable stability, an attribute of unity. There is deliberate inflation of emphasis depicted by the prominent sharp tapered edges attached to the forelimbs, which connotes power, energy and aggressiveness in the process of scrambling for ‘food’ by the Siamese crocodile. Viewers who do not understand the true symbolism of the image sometimes greet the aggressive depiction and the centred common stomach with negative interpretation. However, in the same stable composition, the graceful movement that bedews the tadpole-shaped figures placed at right-angled position creates an impression of diversity.

   

  Methods/Interpretation/Research Questions

  The asԑsԑgua (stool) in Ghana symbolises the soul of the society and serves as inoffensive symbolic link between the people or the subjects and their head of state or king (Antubam, 1963). It implies that the stool has both political and nationalistic useful to the citizenry and their ruler. In this instance, the stool reminds its users and observers of the need to engage in activities that will lead to unity rather than divisive tendencies. It teaches the Ghanaian society of shared destiny and the need to strive for oneness irrespective of one’s political affiliation, social standing, physique or race. The integration of the Funtufunefu Denkyemfunefu symbol into the political significations of stool symbolism therefore combines the essence of communal leaving and nationalistic feeling with power and governance. Just as the Funtufunefu Denkyemfunefu stool symbolises unity in diversity, and nationalism, the coat of arms of Germany also symbolises national unity. In this sense, both are thematised on unity and national consciousness.  Both designs are abstracted animal figures and play allegorical role in the semiotic interpretations of the symbols.

   

  

   

  The coat of arms of Germany

  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswappen_Deutschlands [28.010.24]

   

  In terms of artistic presentation, both were rendered in silhouette. The Funtufunefu Denkyemfunefu stool gives expressive meaning to unity by underscoring that individual difference, diverse shades of opinions and social standing that usually operate in the search for unity but must end in oneness of purpose for the national good. The broad vertical lines that conjoin the flanked arc-shaped lines to give impression of the wings of the eagle figure suggest strength, power and authority of the Germany coat of arms (Figure 3).  

  The common symbolic ideology in both the Germany coat of arms and the Funtufunefu Denkyemfunefu stool is to strive for oneness. Exploring the design concepts, socio-cultural and identity connections between these two images create opportunities for new levels of greater bilateral understanding and integration.

  Obviously, interrogating images of this nature and identifying their essence within their traditional setting vis-à-vis other cultures is likely to help to eliminate prejudices about visual cultures among nations and reduce the barriers in visual communication.

   

  References

  • Amenuke, S. K., Dogbe, B. K., Asare, F. D. K., Ayiku, R. K., & Baffoe, A. (1991). General
  • knowledge in art for senior secondary schools. London: Evans Brothers Ltd.
  • Antubam, K. (1963). Ghana’s heritage of culture. Leipzag: Koehler & Amelang.
  • Bowdich, T. E. (1819). Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee. London: Cass.doi: 10.1017/CBO9781107444621.
  • Essel, O. Q. (2019). Dress fashion politics in Ghanaian presidential inauguration ceremonies from 1960 to 2017. Fashion and Textiles Review, 1(3), 35-55.
  • Rattary, R. S. (1927). Religion and art in Ashanti. . London: Oxford University Press.

   

   

  published March 2020

  

  Bea Lundt

  I am fascinated by the Ashanti-stool, being a symbol of soul of society, “to house the spirit of the Asante nation - living, dead and yet to be born” (Wikipedia), as it is described in this article. Travelling in Ghana very often, I had been told the background-story of this object again and again, so I know its importance to the people. Additionally, you can find several publications describing its meaning.

   

  The beginnings are rooted in the 17th century when the Asante-confederacy was founded.  As the legend tells, the Golden Stool fell from the sky as a religious legitimation of the King Osei Tutu, representing wealth and power of the region. During colonial times the Asante defended the stool against the British. They had been very successful to repulse the European invaders until they were finally beaten. So, for me the Golden Stool is also a symbol of anticolonial defence. People identified with this object as the representative symbol of their culture and protested any robbery of it. The stool as the main symbol of authority of the confederation gives the feeling of security and duration. Every 5^th year it is presented to the public during the Akwasidae-Festival in Kumasi. As I read, there is also a Golden Stool of other ethnic groups, Denkyira and Ga. It is very interesting that this object can be constructed in different shapes and can also be decorated in quite different ways with additional meanings.

   

  

   

  Golden Stool of Asante on its throne, the hwedom dwa, with its immediate caretaker (1935), United Kingdom Government, © public domain 

   

  One of the most exciting buildings I have ever seen, is the Golden Jubilee House (Flagstaff House) in Accra, which is the Presidential Palace and office of the President of Ghana (completed in 2009). Its architecture is following the model of the Golden Stool of the Ashanti people.

  

   

  Golden Jubilee House - Flagstaff House (open access, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Golden_Jubilee_House.jpg)

   

  The example of decoration which is chosen in this article is the Adinkra-symbol for „unity in diversity“. It always remembers me of the European story of Menenius Agrippa and the plebs, a narration which is bequeathed since Greek antiquity. It uses the body as metaphor for the society. The stomach is the symbol for the ruling elite. All the other parts of the body are in a revolt against the stomach, whom they define to be lazy. As the story moves on, they learn that they have to accept the different organs with its different functions because all of them need each other and work together. Also the two crocodiles have to accept that they live with a common belly whilst they both gain different food, which might be the symbol of diversity of the individualistic interests and spiritual goods from outside. They are equal beings which is an important difference to the European story which is used to play down rightful claims of disadvantaged groups.

   

  The comparison of this symbol with the German coat of arms, the eagle: Germany has a quite different history and structure as e.g. Great Britain, France or Spain, countries who have a long tradition being structured centralized. The federal organized structure in Germany makes „diversity“ of the different regions much stronger in our consciousness than the longing for oneness. The state “Germany” just exists since the end of the 19^th century; it comprises a hybrid population with many migrants from all over the world. It has to be blamed for two world wars and was divided in 1945; so the centres changed.

   

  The eagle is a very old symbol found in the old Orient, e.g. in Egypt. Today it is also used by other countries like Austria or the USA. So it is not a specific part of the German culture or political tradition. Also, the traditional setting of this figure is joined to problematic contexts and even has a negative meaning as it often represented imperial endeavours, dictatorship, holocaust, state control and militarism. Very often the eagle is designed in a satirical critical way.  A collection of this caricatures can be found in the “Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn. It might be pedagogically interesting to follow these different performances and messages of the original pattern of this bird.

   

  Reference

  • Catherine Meredith Hale: Ananse Stools and the Matrilineage. Doctoral Dissertation Harvard University 2013; openly available via https://www.google.com/url?q=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11004913/Hale_gsas.harvard_0084L_11004.pdf?sequence%3D3%26isAllowed%3Dy&source=gmail&ust=1594720839716000&usg=AFQjCNHu7lCXklUnOk2v6aQFdM2GjPKefw"> https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11004913/Hale_gsas.harvard_0084L_11004.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

   Published July 2020

   

   

   

  

  Ernst Wagner

  The EVC team from Ghana has chosen this traditional stool that plays a ritual role in the Akan culture. This stool uses a specific symbolic language. The two ravenous and competing crocodiles have a common stomach, i.e. their bodies are fused together. Thus this symbol "represents the idea of unity in diversity, democracy, shared destiny and female-male duality.” But then the text above goes further. It compares the symbol from the Akan culture with the German national coat of arms, which also shows a stylised animal, an eagle. There are many similarities between both symbols, the animal, the shape, the symmetry. Therefore – so the assumption in Ghana – the German coat of arms also has the same meaning as the Akan symbol: national unity. The assumption from Ghana, the equation, triggered an intense discussion in the German team of teachers in 2019. A German historian would say this interpretation is wrong. But, on the other hand, the eagle is definitely used in this sense, e.g. by politically right-wing groups in Germany.

   

   

  This figure presents a simplified visualisation of an extremely complex dispute that took place over several months - from a German perspective.

  1. The partners in Ghana selected the stool, interpreted it and made a connection to the German coat of arms.
  2. The addressees in Germany were very surprised by this, which led to intensive research into the symbols of the Akan culture. Through this, an acquaintance with the unfamiliar form of artistic expression took place.
  3. But, there was also an examination of the equation of meaning in the German coat of arms. The German team took up various aspects: the idea of the stool as a seat of power with symbolic adornment (as here with the English throne). But, the question of what image could be associated with the theme of "national unity" in Germany led to something quite different: the photo of cheering people on the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the division between the communist-totalitarian part of Germany and the capitalist-democratic part collapsed. This photo is much more anchored in the collective cultural memory than the coat of arms in respect to unity.
  4. In this way, the interpretations were discussed and negotiated together.
  5. Similarities and differences between the various cultural symbolisations could be identified,
  6. In a final reflection, the German team formulated their own learning experiences in this process.

   

  Of course, everything was much more complicated and complex, but for the moment, perhaps the following conclusions can be drawn:

  • The team in Ghana presents artefacts that are considered as important for the own context, the team in Germany tries to understand it, but starts a critical discussion when it comes to a German object, the coat of arms.
  • The interpretations are negotiated with each other on eye level.
  • The objects from Ghana and Germany (the stool and the coat of arms), although obviously completely different at first, are related to each other, come into contact with each other. Complex-entangled interactions of the objects themselves occur.
  • What is initially seen as separate from each other becomes entangled in this way. The boundary between ‘one's own’ and ‘the other’ becomes fluid.
  • This creates a hybrid intellectual space in which ambiguity becomes a paradigm.

   Published August 2022

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• 

  Leonie Chima Emeka

   

  Four figures of captured Africans in black and white marble support a massive triumphal arch on their shoulders. On white marble cushions rests the heavy construction with a sculpture of the doge Giovanni Pesaro in its center. flanked by four virtues — Fides, Fortitudo, Caritas and Justitia — the effigy states justice, faith and militant power as the virtues of the Venetian Republic under the reign of Giovanni Pesaro.¹ With striking vividness the tomb seems to propagate the subjection of the black body in favour of the Venetian civilisation.

   

  The literally black skin of the slaves, their round faces, full lips and swallowing round eyes encourage the assumption that what we see here is a typed representation of the so called ‘Sub-Saharan African’. Our perception today is materially influenced by the knowledge of images of Blackamoors in American and European popular culture, as well as the concrete exploitation of the black body during colonialism and slavery. The experience of Venetians in the 17th century, however, was considerably different to our postcolonial and post-slavery perception today. What nowadays generates emotions of horror and contempt, was meant to advertise a short reign that lasted merely one year from 1658 until the doge's death in 1659.² The tomb was built in 1669, ten years after Giovanni Pesaro’s demise, according to the design of the famous Venetian architect Baldessari Longhena (1598-1682).³

   

  The figures of the black slaves are by most accounts ascribed to the German sculptor Melchior Barthel (1625-1672) and relate, not to Africans captured in the transatlantic slave trade, but to the people enslaved in the war against the Ottoman Empire in defence to the island of Candia (today Crete) which was partly lead under Pesaro’s command.⁴ The weapons and armour which adorn the entablature suggest that the tomb in the shape of a triumphant arch refers to a victorious war. The iconography of victory, however, is a vast exaggeration of the truth, as Pesaro had not been considered successful in his defence of Candia and “ironically the island fell in the hands [… of the Ottoman; note from the author] in 1669, as the monument was completed”.⁵ Other than the slave’s de-humanising features might suggest the monument does not legitimise systematic exploitation of the black body equally to blackamoor iconography. Although the transatlantic slave trade had already started when the Pesaro tomb was completed, many more Europeans suffered enslavement in North Africa than has previously been commonly acknowledged.⁶ Venetian enslavement was such a common experience, that “both Ottomans and Venetians counted their imperial rivalry partially in terms of slaves taken and returned”.⁷

   

  In 1669 Great Britain, which later became the most investigated in the transatlantic slave trade, lost more people to Ottoman enslavement than the other way around. The military strength of the Ottoman Empire rather suggests that the compositional subjection of the black marble slaves are meant to refer, or even constitute, a military strength that was strongly challenged in Pesaro’s lifetime. Unlike the blackamoor iconography, the grave is not to be understood as a visual manifestation of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, but postulates a militaristic superiority that was in fact strongly challenged.

   

  Although the black marble slaves in Venice precede blackamoor imagery and its historical context, one cannot disconnect our perception from the traumatic history that would follow. It is hard to overlook the de-humanising effect of the eternally oppressed African sculptures and not to remember the disturbing past of systematic enslavement and its visual representation in de-humanising blackamoor imagery. Even if compared to another massive monumental sculpture featuring Africans as captives the black marble slaves remain singular in their artistic strategy of de-humanisation of the black body.

   

   

  

  © Leonie Chima Emeka

  Giovanni Bandini, Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici 1597-99,
  marble, and Pietro Tacca, I quattro Mori, 1621-26, bronze, height 33 ft. 3 in. (10.14 m) 

   

  

  © Leonie Chima Emeka

   

   

  

  © Leonie Chima Emeka

  Pietro Tacca, I quattro Mori, 1621-1626, Piazza Micheli, Livorno

   

   

  The Monument to Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici in Livorno, Tuscany, is considered the first public monument in early modern Italy to depict enslavement of the black body as a violent act and might have served as a model for the black marble slaves in Venice.⁸ The four bronze figures were manufactured in 1626, only 33 years before the Venetian sculptures, by Pietro Tacca. The four Livorno slaves are in fact a later addition to the monument of the likeness of Ferdinando I. Grand Duke of Tuscany.⁹ Tied to the pedestal they are meant to be understood under the control of Ferdinand I. It is the slaves’ strength and the explicitly forced subjection of these muscular bodies that indicate the elegant but lean Ferdinando I as a strong, assertive and powerful figure.

   

  The four attributes of power completed in Pesaro’s youth, might have offered an alluring imagery for the later Doge, who had been highly criticised and actually taken to court for his military actions in defence of the Isle of Crete.¹⁰ Also the Venetian slaves represent physical strength as they support the massive tomb on their shoulders. The round eyes and big lips in the grimacing round faces which are contorted to an almost animal expression, however, mark the Pesaro slaves as hideous beings. The Venetian Slaves surpass their models in Livorno transcending the degree of de-humanisation to evoke the impression of the African slave as inferior. The slaves in Livorno, who wear a challenging or defeated expression, invite sympathetic emotions while the Venetian figures are deformed to almost caricatures. The status of dominance and subjugation is already apparent in the Venetian figures themselves. Not the presence of the chains, nor their mere position marks them as victims of subjection. It is rather indicated that the subjection is already incorporated in their hilarious features. In presence of the Pesaro slaves one cannot help but feel the uncomfortable impression, that it is the slaves themselves, their explicitly depicted inferiority, which legitimises their enslavement. Barthel’s artistic strategy of de-humanisation marks a shift in the representation of the black body in European imagery. If racism is defined as the naturalisation of the inferiority of the black body it concludes: the Monumento al Doge Giovanni Pesaro is a racist monument before systematic racism.

   

   

  Footnotes

   

  ¹ Identification of virtues: da Mosto, p.250.

  ² Da Mosto, p.253f.

  ³ Da Mosto, p.251. Longhena’s plan can be found in the Zentralinstitute für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.

  ⁴ Ascription and life dates: Kaplan, p.186. Residency in Venice and Ascription: De Mosto, p.251.

  Ascription to Ottomans and War of Candia: Da Mosto, p.238, p.249, p.253. Kaplan, p.186.

  ⁵ Kaplan, p.186. Although Kaplan and De Mosto name “Turks”, I chose the term Ottoman according to Lowe’s statement, that the term ‘Turks’ was often used to describe the whole Ottoman Empire. Da Mosto, p.253.

  ⁶ Davis, p.87ff.

  ⁷ Rothman, p.429

  ⁸ Rosen, p.38.

  ⁹ Construction of pedestal and sculpture: 1597 and 1599 by Giovanni Bandini ibid., p.38.

  ¹⁰ Da Mosto, p.254.

   

   

  published July 2020

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• 

  Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel

   

  Catching a glimpse of the feminine hairstyles (re)presentation in rows on a single support, brings to memory the barber salon promotional campaign artworks that served as visual displays to invite potential customers in parts of Africa in the past. Artists in the community were commissioned to create picturesque signages that display plethora of Afrocentric hairstyles on wooden boards and placed in front of hair salons or vantage points to attract potential clients. The artworks served as form of advertisements to the salon operators. Some itinerant hairstylists moved around with these signages in search of customers. The painted images have been replaced with printed catalogue of pictured hairstyles printed on large sheet of papers and flexy materials which are displayed in and outside salons in the communities. The picturesque hairstyles signage presented in this exhibition reminisces the artistic practice of creating these portraits as form of hair salon advertisement in Togo, Ghana, Nigeria and other West African countries. 

   

  

   Cutout from anonymous artist, second half of the 20th century, plywood, oilpaint, Image: Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel.

   

  Uniformly arranged on a support, the artist presents fifteen Afrocentric feminine flashy plaited coiffures in portrait orientation. Of the fifteen hairstyles, one occupies the epicentral position of the entire composition in frontality of pose, depicting her full facial details in simple flat tone of brownish colour with the hair stylization rendered in black. Her rigged neck, pronounced eyebrow and bejeweled ears depicts her feminine characteristics. In Togolese culture, wearing of earring is a preserve of females as in the case of Ghana and some West African countries. The artist’s treatment of this centrally placed figure gives hint of Togolese feminine beauty standards. Four of the hairstyles are shown in side view, facing the left. Similar to these four figures in profile are the type-form head, rigged neck details and varying earrings. The rigged neck features found on these four figures also appear on the centrally placed figure in the composition. With this treatment, the artist makes visual notation of feminine beauty culture standards that characterised some West African countries. Rigged neck feature is considered as a marker of beauty ideal, and commonly depicted in West African feminine sculptures. For example, Akuaba (wooden doll, predominantly used as fertility figure), of Ghana is often armoured with rigged neck characteristics. Understanding the beauty culture ideals of Africa depicted in this simple but interesting hairstyles composition offers viewers of African art a better understanding of the art.

   

  To reveal a great deal of the level of sophistication of the hair stylizations, the artist showed ten of the figures in back view posture, three each atop and down in horizontal placement, while four are arranged in a kite-shaped arrangement in the middle portions of the painting. The artist generates visual interest with the arrangement of the figures to create a sense of movement, variety and rhythm. For example, in the depiction of the clothing of the figures, shades of reds were used in a serpentine orderliness that forces the eyes to traverse gracefully upon a gaze from the topmost middle part to the down and vice versa. Similar colour treatment is achieved with shades of blue from the top left, moving in diagonal direction to far right of the middle portion of the painting, and orchestrating another diagonal turn towards the down left part. One striking feature that bedews the ten hairstyles in back view posture, is the skillful use of the negative and positive spatial relations that creates visual curiosity for deeper gaze of the hairstyles. With the exception of the blue-shirted figure on the last row of the composition, the remaining blue-shirted figures wear trumpet-shaped hairstyles with multi-sectional visual interests.

   

  All the hairstyles represented by the artist are a reflection of the Afrocentric standardized beauty ideologies and practices inherent in the social environment of practice. These hairstyles make use of no hair extensions and or wigs; and are also practised in Ghana and other neighbouring countries. Females usually cared for their hair to grow long and plait it with black twine to form long narrow stripes which are then arranged in a particular manner by way of styling. Based on the society that wear them, the hairstyles may be given names and have symbolic meanings. The hairstyles portrayed are usually worn by the youthful and middle-aged females.

   

  Colonialists’ invasion, slavery, Western religion, racial discrimination, amongst others, contributed to Black hair stereotyping which has caused some Black women to resort to hair beauty ideals of the colonialists. Historically, the discrimination resulted in some Black women who found themselves in foreign lands, hiding their hair by using coverings, especially, in public places. Some Black women use artificial chemicals to straighten their hairs to imitate the beauty ideals of the colonialists. Despite the counter-resistance to the stereotyping of Afrocentric hairstyling through civil right movements and visual (re)presentation by its practitioners and artists, many African women now wear extensions and wigs, a trend that raises the question of identity crisis and politics. The work of the artist in this context sheds light on the purely Afrocentric hairstyling culture of Togo and its neighbouring countries, and makes unapologetic statement of turning away from the colonial past.

   

  The work brings into focus the need for fashion art educator and artists to join hands in contributing to institutional restructuring of teaching and learning of African fashion history including standardised beauty ideologies and ideals for reclamation of the past, and impenitent practice of Afrocentric beauty culture. Towards this end, teaching and learning should be focalised on the African cultural reorientation, concept of sankofaism (return to fetch the goodies of the past) and respect for one another irrespective of geography, skin colour, hair type or physique. Learners must be taught to build positive self-esteem and love for their culture, and demonstrate love for individual differences.

   

   

   

  This article is part of a gallery: Perspectives from Ghana on Museum Objects in Germany
  

   

  published January 2021

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• 

  Kerstin Pinther

  As a miniature, the sculpture Indépendence Tchao (2014) by the Franco-Algerian artist Kader Attia refers to the Hôtel de l'Indépendence in Dakar, Senegal. At the beginning of the1970s – a little over ten years after the independence of the west African country under Lépold Sédar Senghor and a few years after the first Festial Mondial des arts nègres (1966), the hotel was built by Henri Chomette and Roland Depret. Since the end of the 1940s and into the 1980s, the office of the French architects had built governemental and private buildings and others in numerous African countries. Indépendence Tchao was initially created as a site-specific installation on the occasion of the 11^th Dakar Bienniale in Senegal. It refers back to the hotel high-rise with the sculpture; the ‘borrowing’ can immediately be recognized, above all by its characteristic brise-soleil façade. Kader Attia used discarded and somewhat rusty inex index boxes, stacked on top of each other. The inventory of the archive itself came from a dissolved administration in Algeria. Only a few kilometres away from the central exhibition venue of Dak'Art, the hotel still forms a striking, decidedly 'modern' architectural antithesis to the flat neo-classical colonial administrative buildings - an aesthetic incunabulum that symbolized the future in its outstanding verticality and modern furnishings. However, the former architectural icon is now empty and in a state of decay. Indépendence Tchao (the title is a reference to the famous song Independence Cha-cha from 1960/Kalle) thus refers both to a utopia that has grown fragile, the bursting of a dream; as well as to the persistence of colonial archiving and (also structural) standardization practices, to old and new (architect) networks in the postcolony.

   

  

  Attia, Kadar. Pascale, Fernand Pouillon, Alger.  2012 

  https://inferno-magazine.com/2012/06/23/kader-attia-le-corps-utopique/ [Stand: 28.10.24]

   

  Two further - this time photographic - works by the same artist also address the ambivalences and potentials of modern architectural promises: In the case of the photograph of a woman, seen from behind, surrounded by the mighty arcades of the 200-column courtyard, the connection between the body as the 'first architecture' and the 'built' architecture is central. Not least through the title Pascale, Fernand Pouillon, Alger (2012), it becomes apparent that the person is a transsexual. According to Attia in an interview, the strangeness in one's own body corresponds to the 'architectural' alienation that the inhabitants of the 'Climat de France' who had resettled from the Kasbah in Algier must have felt in the 1950s; the necessity of appropriation, re-territorialisation or even 'becoming at home' applies to both bodies (the human and the architectural).

   

  

  Attia, Kadar. Déconstruir - Reinventer. 2012 

  https://slash-paris.com/en/evenements/construire-deconstruire-reconstruire-le-corps-utopique/sous/3669 [Stand: 28.10.24]

   

  A reflection on transgression and imagination also lies at the centre of another photo: Déconstruir - Reinventer (2012) actually shows only the results of a minimal intervention in the standardized construction method, and yet these traces of spatial action are marked here as meaningful in the sense of aesthetic place-making.

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  Mahmoud Malik Saako

  The Qur'an is typical for the time and the West African region in general. The idea originated in North Africa such as Morocco and Algeria. But the writing was later, influenced by the Hausa and Mande scholars in West Africa. The texts in this Qur'an are the same as the original from Arabia. But there are differences in the kind of calligraphy found in these Qur'ans and those found in Arabia. One important aspect of these Qur'ans is the calligraphy that comes after the beginning of a new chapter or Surah. Again, the use of red, gold and black colour in writing the Qur'an makes them unique.

   

  Artistic features of the Qur'an

  • The leather cover used to protect the Qur'an was designed with some relief using black ink. It shows that leather workers were very important in society. Similar covers are made but in a form of a bag for the Qur'an while others are wooden covers with a leather thong used to hold the wooden covers together with the Quran.
  • The Holy Qur’an has Ayahs (words or verses) and Surahs (chapters). There is Bismillah before each Surah. The Qur'an has 114 Surahs or chapters.
  • Calligraphy works in some portions of the Qur'an. Calligraphy as the art of beautiful, decorative writing has existed in Islam since the word of God, the Qur'an, began to be written. In West Africa which was known to the Muslim world as Bilad-al-Sudan (land of the blacks), Islamic calligraphy naturally came with Islam. They are just symbolic to honour the holy text.
  • The use of three colours in writing such as gold, red and black: This shows how versatile the person was in giving an artistic impression of the Qur'an based on the Kanemi
  • A large decorated sign known as shurafah (ennoblement) is written at the end of every fifteen hizb (that is the division of the Qur’an into parts and portions). This is done as a means of honouring the holy text. (See images below.)

   

  

  The shurafah or ennoblement at the beginning or end of a chapter (surah) is indicated in the two images. The gold, red and black colours are used to give it a splendid look. (Qur’an. 16th-17th century. Mossi in Togo. Museum Fünf Kontinente Munich. Courtesy Museum Fünf Kontinente. Nr. 20-3-1. https://onlinedatenbank-museum-fuenf-kontinente.de/detail/collection/b77d064f-c603-493c-af03-fc167f739586. [Stand: 08.08.24]. Photo: Nicolai Kaestner)

   

  Material used for the Qur'an

  The paper used is brown and a bit hard as compared to today’s paper used for printing. The ink is mixed in a variety of colours. There is jet-black ink that shines. Then there is a colour of black mixed with red and another colour which is neither black nor red. The ink is obtained through the following method. The roots of the desert date tree are collected and burnt into charcoal. This charcoal is then scraped into fine powder. The powder is filtered through a light piece of cloth. Water and gum Arabic are then added and the whole mixture is left to warm up in the sun. The mixture once prepared in this way gives out a very nice smell and its taste is very sweet.

   

  Another method employed to produce the calligrapher's ink is to obtain the chaff of bulrush-millet (Pennisetum Spicotum), chips of the gum-yielding acacia (sieberiono), pods of the plant Egyptian mimosa (Acacia Arobico), slag from smithy and some bits of iron. All these items are then mixed with water. The mixture is filtered and boiled and once it is cooled it becomes ink. If the calligrapher wants a reddish colour or magenta colour imported dye of green or magenta colour is added. This type of ink is meant for the writing of the alphabet only and is always done in pure black. The ink is usually stored in small clay ink pots or small round gourds. The recent time, the ink is kept in small bottles.

   

  What are the general specifics of these early Qur’ans?

  The Qur'an is the holy text of the Islamic religion. In Islam, the Qur'an is believed to be the book of God’s words. The holy text remains sacred and unchanged since the beginning of time. The Qur'an is known as the most powerful text in Islam. Islam is a monotheistic faith and people of the religion take great pride in believing in pure monotheism. As followers of the Qur'an, Muslims must believe there is no one else besides Allah because Allah is the only one we worship sincerely, thus he is seen as the most powerful figure in the religion of Islam.

   

  The Arabic text of the holy Qur'an in a book is known as the mus-haf (literally "the pages"). There are special rules that Muslims follow when handling, touching, or reading from the mus-haf. The Quran itself states that only those who are clean and pure should touch the sacred text. It is indeed a Holy Quran, a book well-guarded, which none shall touch but those who are clean... (56:77-79). The Arabic word translated here as "clean" is mutahiroon, a word that is also sometimes translated as "purified."

   

  It was only Muslim believers who are physically cleaned through formal ablutions should touch or handle the pages of the Quran. Again, the Qur'an should be closed and stored in a clean or respectable place. Nothing should be placed on top of it, nor should it ever be placed on the floor or in a bathroom. Furthermore, when copying the Qur'an by hand, it should be legible with good handwriting. If you are reciting it you need to use a clear and beautiful voice. A worn-out copy of the Quran, with broken binding or missing pages, should not be disposed of as ordinary household trash.

   

  Acceptable ways of disposing of a damaged copy of the Quran include wrapping it in cloth and burying it in a deep hole, placing it in flowing water so the ink dissolves, or, as a last resort, burning it so that it is completely consumed. But the translated Qur'an according to some scholars can be handled either by Muslims or non-Muslims.

   

  Uses of the Qur'an

  The Qur'an is meant for reading or recitation known in Arabic as taliwa. The recitation of the Qur'an is a highly honoured performance in Islam in which Allah blesses both the reciter and the listener. A person who memorizes the whole Qur'an is given the honorary title of a Hafiz (memorizer of the Qur'an). Again, the reproduction of the written Qur'an is as important as oral recitation. Two early calligraphic styles evolved in the writing of the Qur'an, Kufic (the more boxy, angular, heavy, and formal script) and Naskhi (the more elongated, rounded, cursive script).

   

  The words in the Qur'an are regarded as the words of Allah and, therefore, handled with respect. Muslims also hold the view that some of the words contain mystical properties and as a result, Muslim religious scholars are sometimes consulted by people who have spiritual or psychological problems. They write verses from the Qur'an to ward off such evil spirits or for protection. The Qur'anic verses are often accompanied by diagrams drawn on a board and then washed off and given to the client to drink. As a result, these boards have high values based on the extent they have been used. It is believed that the older the board the more efficient it would be and vice versa.

   

  At the Museum, there is one of the Qur'anic writing wooden boards that have verses from the Quaran on one side and diagrams on the other side. This board is brown and round at the base with a handle in a form of an animal beak. The surface is smooth while some old writing has remained and can be seen (see image below).

   

  

  Board (Courtesy Museum Fünf Kontinente. Nr. 9-48. Photo: Nicolai Kaestner)

   

  Where is the Qur’an kept?

  Old Qur'ans were usually placed in two wooden covers before the use of leather cases or bags. It was easy to carry it once it was placed either in the wooden covers or in the leather bag. This is very important not to mess up the loose papers of the Qur'an. The two wooden covers after the Qur'an is placed and bound with a thong. There are two holes in the middle edge of the covers where the thong is passed through to bind the two wooden covers with the Qur'an. This method of bounding the Qur'an with wooden covers was practised during the early Abbasid period. Many of the early Abbasid manuscripts were copied into several volumes based on the Kufic script which was fairly heavy and not very dense. The Qur'ans of this early period were bound in wooden covers, structured like a box enclosed on all sides with a movable upper cover that was fastened to the rest of the structure with thongs. In this period, the Quran was arranged into 20 Juz or parts instead of the original 30 Juz during the Umayyad period. These wooden covers can be found at the Museum Fünf Kontinente (Inventar Nr 15-17-148).

   

  

  Wooden cover of a Qur'an. Museum Fünf Kontinente. (Courtesy Museum Fünf Kontinente. Nr. 15-17-148. Photo: Nicolai Kaestner)

   

  Appendix

  When is it read and how?

  It is read during the five daily worship by Muslims, at leisure times, during periods of hardship, during important occasions etc. However, in West Africa, it is read even at funeral celebrations. In many instances, the whole Qur'an is shared among those who can read, or the 30 Juz are shared among 30 people who recite or read it.

   

  Islam in West Africa

  Islam as a religion was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed in the 6^th century in the Arabian Peninsula. Africa was the first continent into which Islam spread, from the Arabian Peninsula in the early 7th century. By the 10th century, the Berbers of West Africa were converted to Islam by their North African counterparts. It was the Berber Muslims who began to spread Islam into Western Sudan by the end of the 10th century through their trading activities. The Berbers of West Africa also converted some of the Manding-speaking traders to Islam, and they also began spreading it alongside their commercial activities. It was the Mande traders who began to spread Islam into many parts of West Africa through trading activities. The nature of Islam made it easy for the indigenous people to accept it as adherents were able to tolerate, to some extent, some of the local beliefs.

   

  Later, the Hausa from northern Nigeria were also involved in the Kola-nut trade in the mid-15th century. The rulers of many of the Western Sudanese States encouraged the trans-Saharan trade and extended hospitality to both traders and visiting Muslim clerics. The most crucial factor in the diffusion of Islam into many parts of West Africa was the conversion of some of the rulers to Islam. Between the 14th and 16th centuries, many rulers of the Mali and Songhai empires were Muslims and performed the annual Islamic pilgrimages to Mecca to establish trade relationships with the Muslim world. It was during the era of European colonization of West Africa that led to the spread of Christianity among the locals. 

   

   

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  ELVIS NKOME NGOME

  The selection of informants was randomly done as we were only interested in identifying the most relevant resource persons within the research areas like members of defunct and existing regulatory societies, traditional rulers, herbalists, and other village notables with measurable experience in material culture and their symbolisms which is the interest of the author in this paper. The paper consists of three parts: an introduction, the background issues or the historical antecedence, and the core, which deals with interpretation of the motifs on the objects, significance and ends with a summary.

   

  African arts and cultures predates the colonial and missionary encounter in Africa. Some of the works provide useful information about indigenous craft industries such as pottery, carvings, iron metallurgy, weaving and much more. This article made use of works of earlier scholars who discussed aspects linked to the current paper. I also exploited some archival records, for example, file No. E.P.4929, entitled “Assessment Report [on] Bali, Bamenda Division- Cameroon Province (1925) by W.E.Hunt, District Officer, National Archives Buea, NAB. The works are framed into three broad thematic: objects made out of clay; objects made out of iron, and those produced out of wood and forest fiber materials.

   

  Wooden Carvings and Clay Objects

  Traditionally, the Bamenda grass fields and the Western Grassland regions of Cameroon are known for their mastery in the production and commercialization of various art works. In this region, craftsmanship is believed to be handed down from one generation to the next; from father to son. Grassland traditional architecture, objects, and symbols were unique from the point of view of their aesthetics, decorations and uses. In the 19^th Century, a German Military Officer, Hans Glauning’s Official Report of 1906 on the Pre-colonial Nso (Banso) described grasslands houses in the following words:

  The Banso houses, some 5-6 meters high to the roof, are [were] roomy and neatly built in Grassland style. The floors are paved with small pebbles. Each village has at least one meeting and drinking hall with carved door posts. Both frontages of the meeting house in Kumba were hung with about 900 skulls of Bamum and Nsungle warriors…^[1]

   

  The above extract clearly describes the pre-existing cultural and social institutions the European came across in the Bamenda grassland in early phase of the 19^th century. The people were talented carvers, weavers and painters. The most remarkable designs were and are still royal stools, bangles, and door / window frames on houses that helped to show various layers or classes in society. On the door or window frames for example, were carefully carved motifs of animals and other selected creatures. The motifs were interpreted and symbolized cultural and political differenceswhich the society was aptly stratified. 

   

  According to Knopfli (1995a, 2000b) the carved posts were sometimes awards from the Fon, Kwifo as gifts to some notables, cult members, or other great men. These sculptures on wooden frames sometimes depicted great societal achievements of fons and great men and women in society. Also, in royal circles, such sculptures bore symbolic representations of warriors, heroes, and royal animals such as buffalo, lion, python, elephant and leopard appeared conspicuously carved on the chosen object. Other creatures like lizards, tortoise, and scorpions were widely engraved on Grass field arts. Besides, inanimate objects like iron gongs and cowries were represented on objects.
   

  The zoomorphic and anthropomorphic Ethno-historical Dimensions of Cameroonian Carvings

  To better appreciate the origins and meaning of some of the animal motifs on artistic objects, it would be important to understand the cultural and philosophical dynamics of some of the zoomorphic motifs on the objects and what they represent. There are different animals reproduced in aesthetic designs by the carvers like lion, scorpions, tigers, toads, various species of lizards and a host of other non-living things. However, for the purpose of this paper, we shall focus more on the lizards depicted on the wooden board (the ‘Blue Rider Post’). As far as lizards are concern, Hans Knopfli (1990), studied various kinds of lizards which were/are common in the Western Grasslands of Cameroon. The stylistic motif of lizard is one of the most common designs in wood sculpture in the region, but also in many forest areas of Cameroon such as in Kribi in the South Region, amongst the Ejagham group in Manyu and Meme Divisions in the South-West Region of Cameroon. Generally, lizard motifs, or appear on various works of arts such as royal stools, masks, doorframes, drums, clay pots, title cups, and on embroidered robes and caps.^[2]

   

  However, the actual meaning of the lizard symbol is not quite clear. Knopfli noted that lizards are treated with maximum respect in the grassland. The belief about lizards include the idea that twins, chiefs and ancestors can transform themselves into lizards and that lizards have the spiritual ability to drive away witches. These however, does not close the page on their relevance in the cultural settings of different communities. In Africa, different groups perceive lizards differently according to their customs and traditions which have of course redefined their outlook as a people.  There are three main types of lizards common to the grassland groups: the rainbow lizard (known in Bafut as kwifongu).^[3] Another type of lizard is called the majuku lizard in Bafut language. This lizard is used by witch doctors to send and direct lightning in cases of theft, adultery, land stealing etc. Apart from the majuku, there is also the kukub (Mungaka language) lizard. This is a smooth skinned lizard with a long tail and it is very swift running lizard.

   

  In Mungaka language it is called kukub, in Bafut language it is called akongse and in the Babanki language it is called fekeke, while Bakossi called it ebote-ngule. Worthy to note is the fact that most of the grassland sculptures carried this and other kinds of lizard motifs on door and window frames as well as traditional stools. Such insignia symbolized authority and deity, and life (Knopfli, 1990:58) In recognition of the above notion, one is tempted to argue alongside Knopfli that lizards therefore symbolizes life. He further states that any design of two or three rows of lizards round a stool with interlocking fore and back legs expresses the fullness of life.

   

  Interpretation of the Motifs on the ‘Blue Rider Post’: New Perspectives

  The information that follows herein is a fair, reliable and verifiable opinions of our informants who after careful examination of the photographed images gave their interpretations of the motifs on the ‘Blue Rider Post’ in its entirety. It is important to point out that the motifs are zoomorphic (animal), anthropomorphic (human-made) and inanimate gestures in the form of dots and circular/square indications.

   

  The object has two sides which are embellished with similar motifs. The motifs include: dark patches, white dots, red marks, two human-like heads at the top, lizards, squared shape, circular shape in the middle of the object, and at the bottom, two human figures or deities. It is important to look closely at the object in order to have a clear interpretation of its motifs. According to recently collected data, the various marks like red, white and black confer or indicate various meanings according to the customs of the resource persons and sampled communities in Anglophone Cameroon. In this connection, the white colours stands for purification, membership, fertility, peace, prosperity, life, and an ‘eye’ like in the liengu female society.

   

  Similarly, informants in Buea hold that the red colour represents danger, defence, and blood of sacrificed animals, authority and bravery. While, the black colour on the other hand, also represent prestige, authority, danger, and power. All these colours are still used by members of some cult agencies and cultural dance associations in most parts of South-Western Cameroon and the Cameroon-Nigeria Cross River Region. The red colour was extracted from either clay or camwood, while the white dot came from certain milky plants in forest. Existing cultural associations in Meme, Manyu and Kupe Muanenguba make use of these colours. The use of these colours as painting or decorations by associations like the Monikem and Oroko dances depicts closer similarities of the embellished colours used by the originators of the so-called ‘Blaue Reiter Pfosten’.

   

  The upper/top layer with heads represents ancestors who watched over or protected the chief or king on the throne. Lizards on the carved object too represents many aspects or dimensions of community life as messengers, bravery, fertility, protection, and courageousness. On the hand, the square ark and the circular parts depict various things. While the square ark symbolizes the village’s sacred house such as etana, njeb, mbwog, the circle on the contrary represents the village, environment or community. The environment or the village is governed by the king or chief, who derived his authority and spiritual wisdom from the environment which was guided by ancestors.

   

  Lastly, at the bottom side of the object there is a human-like figure, which assumes the status of a village ‘god’ or deity. The two figures at the bottom of the other side are depicted to pay allegiance to their superior king or the hegemonic ruler and played the role of mediator between the spiritual (dead) and the living in society. This is what the two little human-like at the bottom represent. They also played the role of messengers, mediators, seers, defenders, source of fertility and councillors to the reigning kings.

   

  In terms of name, the object was recognized by various informants in areas where the tradition of either its use or production was common like amongst the Bakundu, and Ejaghams of Anglophone – South-West Cameroon. As a spiritual object, some informants called it ndo’obe while others called it nsibiri. According to Ayuk Divine Ndifon and Ernest Effim Lahluh, the object was likely the cult object of the Epke society in Ejagham, and the carvings on its represent a cult writing called nsibiri which could only be read and interpreted by those initiated into the inner core of the secret agency.  The nsibiri depiction is used by members of the Epke cult, who opined that the object was probably dismantled from its original structure in a violent context.

  By situating the object within the forest regions of Cameroon especially amongst the Ngolo, Bakundu of Ndian and Meme Division, and also the fact that there is cultural legacies that identifies with certain features of the so-called Blaue Reiter Pfosten, convinces the researcher to claim this region and its constituent villages as the likely source communities of the object whose biodata lacks comprehensive information to reconstruct its origins and provenance in recent years in spite of its popularity in the global North than in the Global South where it came from.

   

  Summary

  The paper has attempted to deconstruct the so-called Blaue Reiter Pfosten by tracing its seemingly obscured origin, its possible source societies and the meanings attached to its assorted motifs and much more. Based on current data it seems probable that the object was a religious medium of one of the cult agencies or a ritual symbol of some cultural associations or cult that flourished in villages that straddle the Cameroon-Nigerian Cross-River Region, including Ejagham, and Ekoi ethnicities in Manyu and Ndian Divisions of Cameroon. Other possible source villages of origin include Ngolo, Ikiliwindi, Bombe-Bakundu and Ngolo-Bolo. One of the likely reasons for arguing in favour of this assertion is because the above named villages share the same traditional religious, political and cultural beliefs that made used of similar posts for their initiation, divination, protection and other important rituals. It is believed that such an imposing object with impressive characteristics and diverse colorations: red, white and black dots had other uses which only core members of the cult agencies could analyse. This is because the secrets of any cult are kept jealously by its members and non-members are not allowed to know its real meaning. This is another difficulty realized in deconstructing the object.

   

  As earlier mentioned, the object depicts the life of a true traditional African society where there is an inseparable bond between the dead and the living on the one hand, the community leader and his courtiers and deities on the other. However, because of lack sufficient information about this object because failing memories our informants, it seems difficult to ascertain the exact period when the object was made. It is however, true in my humble view that the object was customarily used by the peoples of the originating villages prior to the arrival of European missionaries and German colonial authorities in Cameroon by 1884. 

   

  References

  Chem-Langhee, Bongfen and Fanso, V.G., eds, “Nso and the Germans: The First Encounters in Contemporary Documents and in Oral Tradition”, 1996,

  H, Knopfli. Sculpture and Symbolism. Limbe: Presbook Publication, 1998.

  Ngitir,V.B. “Bamenda Grassfields royal collections and museums from ancient times to the beginning of the 21^st century: The symbolisms and Conservation of Palace Art,” Yaoundé: thesis, Department of History, Yaoundé I, 2014.

  Interviews

  Name of Informants	Profession	Age	Date & Place	Language	Interviewer (s)	Ethnic Group
  Prince Remigius L. Endeley*	Teaching/Museum manager	47 years old	27/07/2020, Buea.	English	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakweri (SW)
  Dr.Venantius Ngwoh Kum	University Lecturer	55 years old	5/08/2020, Buea.	English	Ngome Elvis N.	Esu (Wum) – (SW)
  Ekema M. Ahone	Teaching	65 years old	Tombel, 25/07/2020	English Language	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakossi (SW)
  Michael Emeh	Retired state Agent	84 years old	17/07/2020, Ngob-Baseng, Tombel	English Language	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakossi (SW)
  Prince Nzum’etoe	Researcher/Farming	45 years old	Bakweri-Town-Buea,17/07/2020	English Language	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakossi (SW)
  Richard Tarkang	Retired State-Agent	64 years old	Kumba, 1/08/2020	English Lang.	J.B. Ebune	Banyang (Mamfe) –(SW)
  Mosses Ebollo	Retired state-agent	84 years old	27/07/2020, at Kumba	English Lang.	J.B. Ebune	Bakundu –Ibemi (SW)
  Pa Esseme	Retired farmer	84 years old	Kumba, 13/07/2020	English Lang.	J.B. Ebune	Kokobuma-Bafaw (SW)
  Moka Williams M.	Farming	40 years old	06/07/2020, Wolikawo-Small Soppo, Buea	English Lang	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakweri (SW)
  Prince Kombe David Monono*	Farming/security guard	46 years old	13 October, 2020, Great-Soppo-Buea	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakweri (SW)
  Ikome Kingue	Traditional healer	70+ years old	Bonduma, Buea, October 28, 2020	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakweri (SW)
  Mathias Nyoki	Retired soldier	55 years old	Great-Soppo, Buea, 2020	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakweri (SW)
  Nteh Roland	Teaching	46 years old	28/09/2020, Limbe	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakossi (SW)
  Joss Clinton	Security Guard	46 years old	Limbe, 13/09/2020	English Lang./Pidgin	Ngome Elvis N.	Menchum (NW)
  Chief Ekumbe Thomson*	Traditional Ruler	74 years old	Bakweri-Town Buea, 16/10/2020	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Mbonge-Bakundu (SW)
  Tita Oliver T.*	Teaching	54 years old	22/09/2020, Limbe	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Misaje-(Dongamantong) –NW.
  Paul Mukete	Retired state-agent	80+	Great-Soppo-Buea, 23/10/2020	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bakossi (SW)
  Simon Buma*	Church Worker/PCC	61 years old	Great Soppo, 17/10/2020	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Bali-Nyonga (NW)
  Allen Maimbo B.	Building	58 years old	15/09/2020, Limbe	English Lang.	Ngome Elvis N.	Basum- (NW)

   

   Footnotes

  ^[1] “Nso and the Germans: The First Encounters in contemporary Documents and in Oral Tradition” in Chem-Langhee, Bongfen and V.G.Fanso (eds.), 1996, 123. Quoted in Ngitir (2013): 169. See the entrance to the second Courtyard of the Fon’s Palace, Bali-Nyonga in 1907.

  ^[2] Knopfli (1990), 55.

  ^[3] The word is a combination of the kwifon, the name of the much feared secret society and ngu fowl. Kwifongu then means ‘danger to fowls’.

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  Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel

   

  In my encounter with the exhibits of the Permanent Exhibition of the African Collection in the Museum Fünf Kontinente, one of the African textile collections that striked me from a distance, and possess high tendency of inviting viewers attention is the ndop fabric. I moved closer to the exhibit to observe its uniqueness in terms of its structural and surface characteristics. From my curious observation, I realised that the ndop fabric has simple geometrical linearity and patterns, yet, spiced with complex dynamism of the arrangements of these patterns that evoke the artistic principles of variety, harmony and technical constrast. This treatment breaks monotony and creates multi-sectional visual interest in the fabric design despite its monochromatic colouration. These observable details, characteristic of authentic African fabric, pulled my visual curiosity to the exhibit. Indeed, it is an epitome of authentic African fabric.

   

  Africans had long developed unique structural and surface decorative techniques for creating fabrics. Structural decorative techniques concern itself with the basic forming or construction of the fabric. Weaving, bonding, netting, lacing and felting include the structural decorative technique. Surface decorative techniques deal with the colourations and other embellishments to improve the surface quality or appearance of the fabric. Examples are dyeing, painting, printing, embroidery and applique. The ndop fabric was struturally woven with handspun cotton yarns in plain weave format in the form of stripes. The stripes were joined together with the aid of a needle to form a wide sheet of fabric after which the sheet of fabric was subjected to resist dyeing to create attractive patterns. In resist dyeing, portion of the fabric are prevented from dye absorption. Techniques used in resisting dye penetration include tying, tritiking (sewing), waxing, folding, twisting and coiling, and or a combination of these techniques. In the case of the ndop fabric, tritiking technique was used where raffia fibre cordage was used to stitch the desired patterns such that it could resist dye penetration after which the fabric was immersed into indigo dye solution locally extracted from plants. After the required time for dyeing, the fabric was removed from the dyebath, rinsed, dried and unstitched to reveal the patterns.

   

  The skilful use of regular geometry in seemingly irregular and asymmetric arrangement style complemented by the handmade rendition, the technical finesse in stitching to create the intricate pattern and the entire arrangement of the geometrical shapes in simple repetitive format create high visual appeal of the surface quality of the fabric. Per its visuality, one may see it as a printed fabric, yet, it was created using resist dyeing effect. The slight unevenness in the dye absorption resulting in patchy shades of the indigo at certain portions of the fabric adds to its creative uniqueness. The varying border designs of the fabric bond well in creating a sense of unity in the entire composition.

   

  

   Ndop fabric. Detail. (© Museum Fünf Kontinente / Photo Ernst Wagner)

   

  Besides the observable trenchant characteristics of the fabric, it also has social and cultural contexts in the Bamum society. The ndop is more than just a fabric in terms of its usage and communicative significance. The fabric is symbolically linked to death, afterlife, and powerful spirits connected to life. Consequently, it is worn during funerals and traditional religious rites. Apart from this, it is worn for its aesthetical reasons.

   

  The ndop fabric falls within the repertoire of indigenous and authentic African fabric creation and decoration culture, which include the Korhogo Cloth (Ivory Coast), Adire (Nigeria), Bogolanfini (‘mud cloth’ from Mali), Kente and Adinkra (Ghana), Smock or fugu (Ghana) and Dogon Cloth. Common to these fabric printing technology of Africa is that the fabrics used are usually cotton, with ocassional usage of silk or velvet. In the case of Ghana, Adinkra printing is made with cutout stamps which are dipped into dyes and transferred on the fabric to register the designs while in Kente and fugu, the hand spun cotton yarns are dyed in different colours and used for weaving. The ndop is dyed. Availble records indicate that indigenous dyeing of fabrics in Ghana, in many instances, were done by uniform application of dyes to the entire fabric. This means that fabrics were immersed without resisting some portions. Kobene (brick red) and Birisi (blue-black) fabrics of the Asante people of Ghana are examples.

   

  As a textiles and fashion educator and artist, I guide learners to examine the hand-made indigenous fabric decorative characteristics of Africa including the ndop fabric in order for them to understand and apply them in their fabric design. In this sense it inspires my fabric designs and that of my students. I also empower them through my teaching with historical knowledge about the contributions of Africa to the global textiles design culture. This is because the unique patterns and characteristics found in the repertoire of indigenous and authentic African fabric technological culture have been imitated with computer effects and printed by some European and Asiatic fabric brands, mostly sold in Central and West Africa. These foreign brands have been deceptively labelled with an umbrella term, African prints, to lure and deceive buyers. The ndop fabric has valuable educational relevance in teaching and learning and historical understanding of African fabric making technology in this context.

   

  

  Presentation at the museum 2021 (Photo Ernst Wagner)

   

   

  This article is part of a gallery: Perspectives from Ghana on Museum Objects in Germany. Published in January 2021

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  Gertrude Nkrumah

  Inversion of Hegemony with Ideas of Femininity

  Scholarly works abound on factors and causes of gender inequality in the Ghanaian society and many of these writings address gender inequality solely in terms of women as the victims and thus reinforcing the gender stereotype of female passivity. Although this is true in most cases, such studies do not necessarily address the question of how women have responded to and addressed issues of gender expectations and gender-related roles in African societies. By using the ‘Akuaba’ doll (fertility figurine), this research seeks to explore how the concept of womanhood has been portrayed and represented through time in the Ghanaian society among the Akan ethnic group. It seeks to extend an argument for the interpretation of these images beyond the depiction of women as sexual objects to that of creating an inversion of female hegemony in the society. I argue that instead of considering gender stereotypes as an all-pervasive oppressive tool, we must begin to think of the finer nuances and conceptualize how women have shaped, redefined, and negotiated socio-cultural construction of gender.

   

  The object is widely referred to as the fertility figure, also known as the Akuaba doll among the Akans of Ghana. My reasons for selecting this object are two-fold. Firstly, it speaks to my childhood experiences as a girl growing up in an Akan society and secondly, as someone who is very passionate about gender-related issues either from an intellectual and personal perspectives, I was motivated to choose for this project an object that I can easily relate to, both from a personal and intellectual perspectives.

   

  The object in question is the depiction of a female body, an exhibition of the Akan concept of an ideal woman. The features include a flat forehead with an elongated “ring-like neck shape”¹ which reflects Akan standard of beauty. The understanding is that a woman with this type of neck is well-fed, healthy, and strong, a paragon of beauty and affluence. The flat broad forehead also is an embodiment of wisdom, while the accentuated breasts and hips with beads worn arounds the waist is the Akan ideal of womanhood, a depiction of woman as the giver of life. The beads worn around the waist has both aesthetic and symbolical meanings. In terms of beauty, beads were worn as an ornament for beautification, just as portrayed by the wearing of the jewels around her ears. It was also believed that wearing of beads around the waist is sexually appealing, while beads were also worn to broaden the hips and shape the waist for reproductive purposes. It is important to note that in the Akan society, and indeed in most Ghanaian culture, an ideal woman is one that carries and bears children. Clearly, ideas of beauty, sexuality and reproduction were the very essence of womanhood or femininity in the Akan society.

   

  According to a very popular Akan oral tradition, the Akuaba doll is deeply rooted in one’s woman’s quest to overcome her inability in meeting societal ideas and expectation of womanhood.² Akua, a childless woman, consulted a ritual specialist for a child. She was instructed to go to a woodcarver and make a doll of her choice for a child. Some rituals were then performed on the doll and given back to her to take home and treat and care for as her child. Later she became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, just as she desired. The Akuaba doll then became symbolic for female reproduction. Amenumey explains that the Akuaba dolls were “…supposed to induce fertility and pregnancy….”.³ Among the Akan, like most precolonial Ghanaian societies, the concept of womanhood was largely defined and shaped by a woman’s ability to give birth to as many children as possible. Childbearing was a blessing from the gods and was usually celebrated with pomp and merrymaking. For instance, the custom was to reward a man whose wife has given birth to ten children with a sheep. The Akan refer to this as “badudwan”⁴ literally, a sheep for the tenth child. This was usually provided by the wife’s family to the husband to show their appreciation for the replenishing and sustainability of their family.⁵ In the quest to attain such feat, women worked hard to give birth to at least this number of children as prove of her worth to her husband and the society. This undoubtedly made women who were childless in the society feel undervalued and highly marginalized. 

   

  Such ideas and concepts of womanhood and inadvertent marginalisation of women still resonate in contemporary Ghanaian society and indeed in most contemporary societies. A woman’s value and worth continue to be tied with her sexual and reproductive abilities. Although women at present now have access to spaces and engage in works that go beyond the traditionally assigned roles of wife and motherhood (sexual and reproductive values), a woman is still expected to neatly fit in with socio-cultural construct of gender. This underscores the value place on women’s sexuality and reproduction to the detriment of other roles beyond these norms, thus leading to the marginalization of women. It is for these reasons that scholars such as Lerner and Allman have often called for the need to question entrenched patriarchal norms that undermine women’s oppression while it reinforces male- superiority.⁶

   

  The understanding that women have continually been passive and largely detached from the making of their own history and are mere tools in the hands of a patriarchal society is neatly contested by the history behind the Akuaba doll. While it is true that it was Akua’s desperation to fit into societal expectation of ideals of motherhood that forced her to consult a diviner to help her conceive a child, the knowledge that Akua chose to actively engaged with the process of making the doll; how the doll is carved out, the shape, the physical features, and the aesthetic nature is significant. Additionally, the fact that she chose to carve out a girl child clearly indicates the active role she played in redefining and negotiating power with the matrilineal, yet patriarchal society, thus creating and inverting power in an all-pervasive patriarchal institution. It is also an indication that she did not consider the female as of little value in her society. 

   

  Paradoxically then, the history and philosophical ideologies that underpin the concept of the Akuaba doll is a clear exhibition of the nuances and complexities of societal construction of gender roles and status. In a society with a deeply entrenched gender expectations and assigned gender roles, it is remarkable that Akua sought to circumvent, manipulate, and yet conversely acquiesce with existing status quo to her advantage, an inversion of hegemony amidst patriarchal privilege. Therein lies the ambiguities and contradictions of performing gender.

   

   

   

  References

   

  • Addo-Fening, R (1973). Asante refugees in Akyem Abuakwa 1875-1912. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 14, 1. 39-64.
  • Akyeampong, E & Obeng, P. (1995). Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 28, 3. 481-508.
  • Allman, Jean. (1996). “Rounding up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried Women in Colonial Asante.” Journal of African History, 37, 2, 195-214.
  • Amenumey, D. E. K. (2008). Ghana: A concise history from pre-colonial times to the 20^th Century. Accra: Woeli Publishing.
  • Appiah Anthony K. (1991) “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial? Critical Inquiry. Vol. 17, No. 2. 336-357.
  • Lerner, G. (1994). The creation of feminist consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lerner, G. (1986). The creation of patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.

   

  Footnotes

   

  1) It is quite common today to hear songs in the Ghanaian society eulogising a woman’s beauty by referring to her ring-shaped neck, together with other physical features. This is an indication that the Akan standard of beauty in the past as enshrined in the Akuaba doll continue to resonate with contemporary Ghanaian societies.

  2) This is a popular story among the Akans and was often recounted to young girls especially by an older woman in the family or society. I grew up listening to these stories from my mother and grandmother, among others.

  3) D. E K. Amenumey. (2008). Ghana: A concise history from pre-colonial times to the 20^th Century. Accra: Woeli Publishing. P. 90.  From a spiritual and philosophical perspectives, the use of the Akuaba went beyond just fulfilling the desires of childless women. In most of these Akan societies, when a woman gives birth to twins but in an unlikely situation where one of them dies, she is expected to make a replica of an Akuaba doll in replacing the dead child. Some would also bury the dead child with the Akuaba doll as a way of warding off evil spirit from killing the living child.

  4) “Badu” is an Akan name for the tenth born child. ‘Ba’ or ‘ɛba’ is the Twi word for child, while ‘ɛdu’ or ‘du ‘means the number ten in the Akan language. Therefore, the name Badu in Akan usually refers to a tenth born child.

  5) It is significant to point out that Akan society, unlike most ethnic groups such as the Mole-Dagbani, Ewe, Ga-Adangbe and Guan, is mostly a matrilineal society. Lineage, inheritance, and chieftaincy succession have always been through the female line. Although precolonial Akan society was not completely immune from patriarchal ideals, women played important roles and and had significant status in society especially in areas of religion, politics and economy. For further details on this, see for example the articles Addo-Fening, R (1973). Asante refugees in Akyem Abuakwa 1875-1912. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 14, 1. 39-64 & Akyeampong, E & Obeng, P. (1995). Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 28, 3. 481-508.

  6) See for example, Allman, J. (1996). “Rounding up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried Women in Colonial Asante.” Journal of African History, 37, 2, 195-214, Lerner, G. (1994). The creation of feminist consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870. Oxford: Oxford University Press., & Lerner, G. (1986). The creation of patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.

   

   

  This article is part of a gallery: Perspectives from Ghana on Museum Objects in Germany

   

  published January 2021

  

  ISB_Team

  A German Perspective on the Akuaba Doll in the Museum Fünf Kontinente Munich
  

  
  (Download the text in German)

   

  Akuaba Dolls are wooden figures that were and apparently still are in use mainly in rural areas in southern Ghana. Young women hoping for pregnancy or - if they are already pregnant - for the health and beauty of their child, wear these figures on their bodies like real babies and take care of them. That is why they are called 'dolls'.

   

  Akuaba or better Akua-Bà literally means 'child of Akua'. The story tells of "a woman named >Akua< who could not get pregnant and went to a local diviner or priest and commissioned the carving of a small wooden doll. She carried and cared for the doll as if it were her own child, feeding it, bathing it and so on. Soon the people in the village started calling it >Akua< >ba< - meaning >Akuaba's child<, since >ba< means child. She soon became pregnant and her daughter grew up with the doll." (Annor et al., p. 308)

   

  This story also forms the basis for the function of the widespread dolls as aids in a desire for pregnancy. An Akuaba Doll expresses this desire for a child, so the figure is 'cared for' by a girl from puberty onwards. This happens within the family. Outside the family, Akuaba Dolls can be found in shrines under the care of a ritual specialist, where they can be borrowed for their purpose.

   

  

  Fig. 1 & Fig. 2 Views of the Akuaba Doll in the Munich Museum Fünf Kontinente

  Anonymous artist. Fante Fertility Figure. Early 20th century, Wood. 27,5 cm. Museum Fünf Kontinente. Presentation at Museum Fünf Kontinente.

  © Museum Fünf Kontinente

   

  Description

  The doll in Munich's Museum Fünf Kontinente (Fig.1) comes from the Fante area. It shows a female figure. The very strongly abstracted forms and proportions symbolise various aspects:

   

  The rectangular shape of the very flat head becomes - seen from the front - somewhat broader in an elegant curve towards the top. A strikingly high forehead, with eyes, eyebrows and nose only indicated, while mouth and ears are missing. The accentuated arch segments of the eyebrows flow together and then form the nose. On the back, the head has geometric patterns (Fig. 2). Added earrings of glass beads give the figure a colourful accent. For Kecskési (p. 38), their daintiness is a sign that the doll has been lovingly treated. At the very top there is another small moulding with a hole where hair was originally attached (compare Fig. 3a).

   

   

  Fig. 3a: Akuaba Doll from the Linden Museum Stuttgart (Forkl p. 94).   Fig. 3b: Use of the doll (drawing by Vanessa Rast - courtesy the artist)

  
  

   

  The neck has five rings. It sits on a very slender, round trunk, which in turn stands on a delicate base. Striking are two groups of three diagonal embrasures each, which are repeated on the back. The figure has no arms, the legs are short stumps. The protruding forms in the chest area mark the figure as female. Its strict symmetry is softened by small deviations. One can well imagine taking the cylindrical figure in one's hand.

   

  Material and technique

  A ritual specialist to whom a woman who wishes to have a child goes makes the decision about the choice of doll at the respective shrine. If no suitable figures are available there, he instructs the woman to order a new Akuaba Doll from the woodcarver. The craftsmen then visit the tree to obtain the wood and ask the tree's spirits for permission to do so (oral information from the Ghanaian colleagues 2022 in Bayreuth [Link]). The Akuaba Doll in the Munich Museum was carved from softwood. (There are also darker examples made of hardwood, for example among the Ashanti, also an Akan group, as the presentation in the Ghana National Museum in Accra shows - see Fig. 4.) In the example in Munich, eyebrows and nose are darker. 

   

  

  Fig. 4: Presentation of Akuaba Dolls at the Ghana National Museum in Accra (March 2023. Photo: the author)

   

  Interpretation of the Munich figure within the original Ghanaian context

  (1) Utility function: The figure is made for the family context. It is meant to lead to fertility, sometimes also to the beauty of a child. The size (height 28 cm), the pleasant material and the weight allow the figure to be carried and cared for like a baby. When an Akuaba Doll has fulfilled its task, it is often returned to the ritual specialist who accompanies the process.

   

  The breasts indicate a female figure, which does not necessarily have to do with a corresponding desire for the sex of the child desired. Forkl (p. 94) assumes, however, that "women desire daughters, on the one hand as progenitors in a matrilineality oriented society, and on the other hand as support in household work." (There are also Akuaba figures with the characteristics of both sexes and probably male specimens; furthermore, breastfeeding examples and those who in turn carry other Akuaba Dolls.)

   

  (2) Body shape: T The conspicuous and disproportionately large rectangular head symbolises the head as the seat of intellect and wisdom in local imagery. Akuaba figures among the Ashanti show round heads (see fig. 4), but they are also proportionally very large. High foreheads and flat faces correspond to the ideal of beauty. Luxuriant bulges on the necks tell that the figure is well-fed and thus refer to happiness and prosperity. There are Akuaba Dolls that show more feminine body shapes, wider hips, possibly emphasised by strings of pearls.

   

  (3) The spiritual context:  As Nkrumah writes in her contribution, an Akuaba figure serves as a dwelling place for a soul being, a being that is in a transitional area between the earthly and the spiritual world. Carrying and caring for it is a prerequisite for the entrance of such a soul being, which then sets out to appear on earth as a living being, i.e. to enter the family of the young woman through birth. A ritual specialist is involved in the selection, consecration and regulations for use. After a birth, the figure is returned to the ritual specialist.^[1]

   

  (4) The social and cultural context: The figure can also be seen as a sign of the traditional expectation for a woman to bring children into the world. In recent times, where traditional societal expectations of women collide with other worldviews, the ritual use of Akuaba Dolls obviously decreases .

   

  

  Fig. 5: Souvenir shop at Accra Airport (March 2023. Photo: the author)

  In the last decades, an interesting production for tourism has been established - apparently the dolls are seen as 'typical for Ghana'. However, these are not Akuaba Dolls in the traditional sense, but rather 'quotes'.

   

   

  How can one relate Akuaba Dolls to European visual traditions and experiences?

  As familiar as the image of an Akuaba figure may seem in Europe - as a 'typical' example of traditional African art - its traditional meaning is unknown in Europe. Nevertheless, it obviously seems to be attractive to tourists, e.g. as 'airport art' (see Fig. 5), perhaps because its shape somehow corresponds to the cliché idea of 'typically African', the size fits well into the suitcase, or the large head (by means of the Bambi effect) makes it appear 'cute'.

   

  

  Fig. 6: Paul Klee. Senecio. 1922. Oil on chalk base on gauze on cardboard. 40.3 × 37.4 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel (Wiki Commons)

   

  In the context of art history, the influence of Akuaba Dolls (and many other carved representations from West Africa) on European art of the early 20th century (see Fig. 6) is of interest. ^[2] The formal similarity to Klee's painting (fig. 6) is striking at first glance, but whether this is a direct reference must first be verified. In the context of art history, it would then be of interest in a next step which aesthetics were of interest to the artists at the time and which they blanked out, i.e. which "image of Africa" they wanted to have and also communicate.

   

  

  Fig. 7: Hieroglyph Anch

  (Photo: https://anthrowiki.at/Anch)

   

  The authors also considered whether the formal similarity of the Akuaba Dolls with the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph ‘Anch’ (the "loop of life" or the "key of life" - see Fig. 7) could have come about through a historical relationship between Egypt and Ghana. This would also correspond to the accentuation of content in Nkrumah's text with regard to the "representation of the woman as the giver of life" (see her chapter). Nevertheless, this association would also have to be examined more closely. To assume a universal archetype in the sense of C. G. Jung appears to be pedagogically misleading in its levelling effect.

   

  In the German educational context, on the other hand, it seems important to link the figure - beyond clarifying its function - to Akua's story and thus include the role of narratives. This prevents another comparison that is also too quick and reductive when it comes to social practices (and not the isolated object), as dolls are also cared for and nurtured in traditional European contexts, but mostly by young children before puberty. So, in Europe, it does not belong to a fertility ritual, even if the child puts itself in the role of a ‘little mother’ or ‘little father’. (Another interesting question, whether Ghanaian women also go to a doctor when they are not pregnant, and whether there are comparable ritualised practices in Central Europe - for example among alternative practitioners or in esoteric circles - would have to be addressed in interdisciplinary approaches.)

   

  Such comparisons appear to be useful, as they can show both similarities and differences, with the aim of better recognising one's own perceptual conventions or stereotypes and thus putting them into perspective. All this still leaves the question of the status of this doll in Munich when it is displayed in a showcase in a European museum (see Lab entry: What is an object? Link). Such a presentation contradicts its ritual and spiritual use. An Akuaba is then no longer an Akuaba. But what is it then?

   

  Sources

  This text is based on:

  • Contribution by Gertrude Nkrumah: https://explore-vc.org/en/objects/the-akuaba-doll.html
  • Talks with the Ghanaian EVC partners in Bayreuth in 2022: https://explore-vc.org/en/activities/archive/april-22-25-2022-joint-workshop-uew-team-and-isb-team.html
  • The presentation at the National Museum in Accra, seen in March 2023: Fig. 4.
  • Reading: see list of references

  References

  • Akyeampong, E & Obeng, P. (1995). Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 28, 3. pp 481-508
  • Anderson, Elizabeth L. (1989): The Levels of Meaning of an Ashanti Akua'ba. In: Michigan Academican. 21 205-219
  • Annor, I., Dickson, A & Dzidzornu, A. G. (2011): General Knowledge in Art. Accra (Aki-Ola Publications)
  • Forkl H. (1997): Healing and body art in Africa. Stuttgart (Lindenmuseum)
  • Kecskési, M. (1999): Kunst aus Afrika - Museum für Völkerkunde München. Munich (Prestel)

   

  Footnotes

  ^[1]              The number of five neck bulges here (there are also specimens with 3, 8 or 9 bulges) may also   be a reference to the sacred number of "Odumankoma", the Akan creator deity, in this context.

  ^[2]              On the relationship of the European avant-garde to the aesthetics of West African carvings, see also the discussion of the Blue Rider post on this website (link 1 and 2).

   

  

  Christin Winter

  My Encounter with Black Feminism and Womanhood Inspired by the Akuaba Doll

   

  I first came in contact with the Akuaba Doll while reading Bernardine Evaristo’s award winning book Girl, Woman, Other. In the book, the character Nazinga was described as “at least six foot tall with ornamented dreadlocks, large wooden Akuaba fertility doll earrings, red trousers, a cream embroidered caftan and strappy Roman sandals“ (Evarsito 2020, p. 81). I searched for Akuaba fertility doll earrings on the internet, but did not delve further into the topic at this time. A few weeks later, attending a seminar with Dr. Wagner at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, I stumbled upon the Akuaba Doll again. I knew, I had to take this opportunity to get to know her better. The comment from Gertrude Nkrumah is to be considered my first source of information about the history of origin and the tradition into which the Akuaba Doll is woven.

   

  Through Nkrumah's feminist perspective on the Akuaba Doll, I wanted to dive deeper into the topic of Black Feminism to extend my knowledge in feminist theory. With the Akuaba Doll as my point of departure, I decided to focus on the ability to bear children and the social significance of abortions for Black women.^[1]

   

  At this point I move past the Akuaba Doll and her cultural context. Other works of art could have led me to a similar path. I have chosen to look at the Akuaba Doll with categories, which are not directly related to the Akuaba Doll and her cultural context as I questioned whether I have the right to write about the Akuaba Doll considering the colonial past of my own country, Germany. I am a white, European woman, a feminist, who is aware of intersectionality and racist structures within the society I have been socialised in and its way of thinking, but with no cultural connection to the Akuaba Doll other than the colonial impact on African art and culture (cf. Kushinator, Rahman and Dompreh, 2020^[2]). Therefore, I chose a topic to which I have access via my role as a student of pedagogy and focus on Black Feminism and Womanhood of Black women living in white-dominated countries.

   

  In white-dominated societies, Black women were excluded from a feminist movement for decades (cf. hooks, p. 216f.). White women systematically utilised the racist hierarchy within women to gain power and thereby forced a specific Black feminist movement to form and uncover the oppression Black women had and still have to face. The prefix “Black” emphases the specific oppression Black women face in white-dominated countries, although, of course, there has been feminist movements in Black-dominated countries before (cf. Roig quoted from Berlin Biennale 2022, 48:00 – 49:50).

   

  In American history, Black women have always had to fight to be seen as women. As bell hooks gets to the heart of it: “the black female was a creature unworthy of the title woman; she was mere chattel, a thing, an animal” (hooks 2015, p. 214). Sojourner Truth^[3] had to bare her breasts to prove that she was a woman indeed. Being yelled at “I don’t believe you really are a woman” by a white man represents the contempt and disrespect for Black womanhood (cf. hooks 2015, p. 214). In her famous speech “Ain’ I a Woman” (1851), she argues, that she – as her white women audience too – is indeed a woman. Here she argues with characteristics, that can also be found in the Akuaba Doll. The most important argument is the carrying and bearing of children and the “mother’s grief” (Truth 1851 quoted from hooks 2015, p. 215) she cried out, when her children were sold into slavery.

   

  The ability to bear children has always played an important role in the history of womanhood and was – and still is – utilised to oppress and exploit Black women. In times of slavery, Black women were forced to procreate and bear children, who were worth a lot of money in a perfidious system of human trafficking (cf. Federici 2020, p. 23f.). In the late 20^th century, Black men in the U.S. reasserted what they called their “rightful positions as patriarchs” (Taylor 2022) and denounced birth control and abortions as genocide that compromised the future and freedom of Black families by limiting the Black population (cf. Federici, p. 25f.). With the overturn of Roe v. Wade^[4] – Black women are specifically affected, as Kwajelyn Jackson, Executive Director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia puts it into a nutshell: "Abortion bans are inherently racist because they do not consider the lived experiences of Black people and other communities of colour. Many state policymakers would rather criminalize and endanger Black birthing people than supply them with all of the resources they actually need" (Jackson quoted from Long 2022). Even before the abortion laws were restricted, Black (and other BIPoc) women in the U.S were two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women (cf. CDC 2019). Being allowed to decide whether you want children or not and furthermore, having access to certain facilities to end a pregnancy or not is still a bound to privileges. It is not only tied to the health care system, but also to cultural beliefs and practices, to the financial and educational background, as well as to class, race and many other factors.

   

  In a world imprinted by patriarchy and privilege, it is important to unravel power structures that dominate our world, uncover where they come from and how different groups are affected differently. As patriarchal patterns of thought are inscribed in nearly all societies of our world, it is a tough task to uncover them in every aspect of our lives and hence require lifelong learning and feminist thought. Nevertheless, it is indispensable in order to build an anti-racist gender-equal society in which every woman can decide herself, if she wants to get children without fearing financial or social consequences.

   

  In this context the Akuaba Doll can be interpreted as an early moment of feminism, where women disrupt the patriarchal system that marginalizes them. As Nkrumah states, by deciding about the gender of her child in a binary system, she chose to bear a girl rather than a boy, which – in the matrilineal line – effects the lineage, inheritance, and chieftaincy succession (cf. Nkrumah 2020). In my eyes, Akua used the power she had to influence her life to her advantage. Yet the worth of women was still tied to her sexual and reproductive abilities, but nevertheless she made a first step by empowering women to stand up for themselves and for their own lives.

   

  References

  Berlin Biennale (2022). Panel: Afrofeminism. Bridging the Gap. <https://12.berlinbiennale.de/media/panel-afrofeminisms-bridging-the-gap/> (09/30/2022).

  Center for Reproductive Rights (2022). The World’s Abortion Laws. <https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/> (09/30/2022)

  Evaristo, B. (2020). Girl, Woman, Other. UK: Penguin Books.

  Federici, S. (2020). Jenseits unserer Haut. Körper als umkämpfter Ort im Kapitalismus. Münster: Unrast.

  hooks, b. (2015). Ain’t I a Woman. Black Women and Feminism. New York: Routledge.

  Kushiator, G., Rahman, A. and Dompreh, H.-O. (2020). The Influence of Western Culture on Traditional Art Forms and Cultural Practices: ‘Akuaba’ doll among Akan Women in Africa. ADRRI Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, Ghana: Vol. 17, No.6 (5), S.59 – 71.<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344438737_The_Influence_of_Western_Culture_on_Traditional_Art_Forms_and_Cultural_Practices_%27Akuaba%27_Doll_Among_Akan_Women_in_Africa> (09/30/2022).

  Long, S. (2022). Abortion Bans pose a Danger to all Mothers. For Black Women, they’re especially damaging. <https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10015405/abortion-ban-racism-black-women-effects> (09/30/2022).

  Nkrumah, G. (2021). Inversion of Hegemony with Ideas of Feminity. <https://www.explore-vc.org/en/objects/the-akuaba-doll.html> (09/30/2022).

  Taylor, K.-Y. (2022). How Black Feminists defined Abortion Rights. <https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/how-black-feminists-defined-abortion-rights> (09/30/2022).

   

  Footnotes

  ^[1] In this context, I will delve into the topic of reproductive abilities and use the term "woman" throughout my text. However, I want to clarify that the ability to bear children is not a defining characteristic of womanhood. Not all women have a uterus, and not all women are able to bear children. Furthermore, one's physical appearance is not a determining factor of one's gender identity. Despite this, the reproductive ability is instrumentalised in our society and can lead to harmful stereotypes, which many women are confronted with at some point in their lives.

  ^[2] In addition to exploring the different forms and cultural backgrounds of Akuaba Dolls, this article delves into the ways in which culture, religion, and artistic expression are intertwined in African cultures. The article points out how the colonization by white, western, and Christian men and women caused a change in function and values of the Akuaba Doll.

  ^[3] Sojourner Truth lived from 1797 to 1883. She was an American abolitionist of New York Dutch heritage and a women’s rights activist. She was born into slavery, but escaped to freedom in 1826. In 1851 she joined George Thompson, an abolitionist and speaker, on a lecture tour through central and western New York State. At the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her speech with later became famous as “Ain’t I a Woman?”

  ^[4] Roe v. Wade is a legal case in which the U.S Supreme Court ruled that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional and that the Constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion. This decision from 1973 was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

   

  
  
  

Read more …

• 

  Nobumasa Kiyonaga

  Katsushika Hokusai, Nami-ura

   

  Many Japanese feel astounded when they know that Hokusai is considered as the most famous Japanese artist in the Western countries. The art-historical assessment in Japan also turns out differently than one would probably expect from a Western perspective. For example, it was only in 1997 that one of his works was admitted as Japan’s cultural heritage for the first time by the Japanese Ministry of Culture.

   

  In order to understand this understatement, one needs to understand the socio-historical context of the time of the period when Hokusai produced this work: In the Hokusai's lifetime, an ukiyo-e master was considered as a mere craftsman. This, for example, represents a strong contrast to the Kano school artists, whose focus was primarily on Chinese painting. Many of the Kano school artists worked as the shogunate’s official painters, which enabled them to be part of the warrior class. In feudal society there was an unbridgeable clear class difference between those artists and ukiyo-e masters. Moreover, ukiyo-e was considered vulgar, as it was a medium for common people and some were even pornographic. Today “ukiyo-e” specially represents Japanese woodblock prints of the later Edo period. But actually the term ukiyo originally has a Buddhism-originated, rather pessimistic meaning, namely: “transitory world”, which contrasts to the word jōdo as “pure land” or “paradise”. “Ukiyo-e” in this context would mean “images from this world”. However, it was precisely in the Edo period mentioned about the attempt of reinterpretation, especially among townspeople, to perceive, affirm and even enjoy this temporary, worldly world as something positive. Accordingly, despite its originally negative meaning of the word, motifs that came to mean everyday, life-affirming, bourgeois life were often chosen for “ukiyo-e”.

   

  In the Hokusai's lifetime his artistry¹ in this sense certainly met with positive response and interest from the townspeople in Edo (today Tokyo). But it was French art critics and modern artists at the end of the 19th century who gave Hokusai “world-class” status. With the style of the so-called Japonisme they hoped to get impulses or artistic suggestions from the color woodcuts or lacquer works to overcome the hopelessly frozen academic European art from their viewpoint; bold, asymmetrical compositions, spontaneous drawing, strong colors, overcoming the central perspective. It seems clear that the view of these Europeans on Japanese works of art was from the beginning selective. And obviously Hokusai was an ideal projection here.

   

  In Hokusai's extensive oeuvre the “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” is regarded as his main work. Among all of Hokusai’s works, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” particularly has attached special attention in the West until the present day. Already in 1897 Camille Claudel (1864-1943) created her work “La Vague”, which was inspired by “The Great Wave” and in 1888 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) pointed out the special nature of this work in a letter to his brother. Eventually “The Great Wave” established itself as an “global icon” as one acknowledged today.² According to the English art historian Christine M. E. Guth, it was decisive for the enormous spread of the picture that in the West, “The Great Wave” was chosen as the title to differ from the original “The Backside of the Wave”. In this way, the image has been separated from the original context.³

   

  The fascination, which this work still holds globally today, certainly lies all in the geometrical or typically Japanese asymmetrical composition and the dynamic representation of the big waves. Thereby the horizon is set unusually low, which additionally serves to increase the effects. The position is actually very unnatural and almost impossible. Here it is important to point out that this perspective representation was a result of Hokusai's attempt to appropriate or interpret the European central perspective. It was in the early 18th century that the Japanese began to deal intensively with this Western style of painting. By directly connecting the foreground and the distant view without a middle ground, they found a particularly effective means of dramatic representation, which in reality deviated from the actual Western painting principles. The Japanese art historian Shigemi Inaga calls this typical Japanese expression “chūkei-datsuraku (falling out of the middle ground)”.⁴ Many ukiyo-e masters liked to make use of this manner. Also in Hokusai's “The Great Wave” it seems to have succeeded impressively. As already expressed in the original title “Nami-ura” (the backside of the wave), the picture draws the viewer's gaze deep into the inner side of the devouring movement of the waves. Thereby a literally sublime feeling is awakened in the observer. In front of this mighty natural phenomenon, the people in the picture look powerless, as if they were merely driven by the waves. The holy Mount Fuji silently watches all this sight from far away.

   

  Mount Fuji, a 3776 meter high volcano, is not only the highest mountain in the country, but has been worshipped as a religious object in ancient Japan. On the one hand, Fuji with its rich water reservoir provided fertility, but on the other hand its eruptions caused great damages to the population. Accordingly, it was always regarded with a certain reverence and in the 9th century the first shrine for the fire god “Asama” was built on it. The mountain then also became a holy place for Buddhists. The Mount Fuji worship became especially popular during the Edo period. The most eloquent example is Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”. Otherwise Mount Fuji was chosen as subject of the painting again and again since the 11th century at the earliest. Later, at the peak of nationalism in Japan, especially during the second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War (1937-1945), the mountain was identified with the nation “Japan” per se and eventually became an authentic “national symbol”. After World War II it was then seen as a symbol of the new, revived Japan. Based on these historical backgrounds it seems obvious that many Japanese perceive something particularly familiar in the depiction of Fuji in the work “Nami-Ura”. In this sense, it is quite significant that Mount Fuji was recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage in 2013, as a “sacred place and source of artistic inspiration”.

   

  Today, the image “The Great Wave” is often used for merchandising products of museums,  such as coffee mugs, plates, notebooks, ties, T-shirts, wristwatches or umbrellas, and is extremely successful. The Japanese government finally jumped on this trend at the beginning of the 21st century when it developed a state-sponsored marketing strategy based on “Cool Japan”, a neologism created by the American journalist Douglas McGray, in which the Japanese subculture such as manga or anime would play a major role. The motif was also used for the “Cool Japan” project. Guth sees this as the final recognition of Hokusai on the Japanese side.⁵

   

  Inaga writes that Hokusai was an artist who had gained his unique historical significance in the international context of Japonisme "as a sociological phenomenon“.⁶ The shift in Hokusai's evaluation for over a century makes his creative approach a complex construct of the artistic, cultural and social development of the Edo period. Inaga notes that “many things that today are considered the essence of Japanese aesthetics were actually refined in dealing with imported culture. […] Cultural characteristics are not revealed in isolation, which shields itself from foreign influences, but rather through curiosity about the outside world“⁷. Especially Hokusai's art is a prime example of this statement.

   

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  Download a more detailed version of this essay by Nobumasa Kiyonaga (in German).

   

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  Footnotes

  ¹ The concept of art with the European sense did not exist in Japan at that time yet. For this reason the author avoids the term “art“ at this point. It was only after the opening of Japan to the Western countries in the 1850s  that the term was newly introduced from Europe as a translation word.

  ² Christine M. E. Guth (2017): 21 Seiki no Yōroppa · Amerika bunka no naka no “Ōnami” (eng: The Great Wave in Twenty-first Century Euro-American Culture), in: exh.cat. Hokusai and Japonisme, Tōkyō: Kokuritsu seiyō bijutsukan (The National Museum of Western Art) und Yomiuri shinbun Tōkyō honsha, p. 296.

  ³ Guth (2017): Ibid.

  ⁴ Shigemi Inaga (1999): Kaiga no tōhō ­– Orientarizumu kara Japonisumu e (eng: The Orient of the Painting: Orientalism to Japonisme, Nagoya: The University of Nagoya Press, p. 90ff.

  ⁵ Guth (2017): pp. 298-299.

  ⁶ Inaga (1999): p. 174.

  ⁷ Shigemi Inaga (2018): Nihon-bijutsu-shi no kindai to sono gaibu (eng: The modernity of Japanese art and its outside) Tōkyō: Hōsōdaigaku kyōiku shikōkai, p. 33.

   

   published June 2020

  

  Ernst Wagner

  Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kangawa

   

  A raging sea, mighty waves, spray falling like snow from their crests. The waves form huge claws that hover precariously over the fishermen in their fragile boats. Adapting to the shape of the mighty waves, the boats’ bows thrust their way ahead towards the left. The energy of the boats speeding forward is compositionally absorbed by the propulsive force of the water pushing to the right. Hypothetically, the viewer is positioned in the water and is in just as much in danger as the oarsmen.

   

  In the centre of the wave trough’s mighty movement, we see the static Mount Fuji diminutive in the distance. Although one could almost overlook it due to its size and similar colour to the water it is the central subject of this woodcut, one in a series of “36 views of Fuji”, completed by Hokusai.  Fuji’s peak lies in the golden section and serves as a stabilising element. The mountain, holy in Shintoism^[1], appears like a vision, promising (unattainable) security. A pale white cloud above it takes on the shape of the wave adding to the threatening atmosphere. It is somewhat irritating how Mount Fuji and the waves approach each other through colour, form and lines. Even the drops of water coming out of the spray look like snow falling on Fuji’s peak. The small rowers crouching in their boats do not even see the mountain. In comparison with the other pictures in the series, this sheet displays the most dramatic representation in juxtaposition to the calm steadfastness of Fuji. The other 35 sheets mostly depict Fuji in idyllic everyday scenes or in quiet, monumental sublimity. (The great differences in style show that the series was published over a span of several years.)

   

  The composition is like a snapshot of a scene at its dramatic climax. We, the observers perceive it from the distance and, at the same time, we are right in the middle of it. The giant wave is about to crash over the boat on the left, while the other two boats, swift as arrows, are heading right into it as well. According to historical accounts, they are fishing boats that are on their way back with their catch to the mainland, to Kanagawa, a place in the bay of Edo, today's Tokyo. But none of this is visible in the print. Instead, Hokusai illustrates a powerful and dangerous nature in which men must integrate themselves in order to survive. The picture displays the fishermen nestled within the frame of the wave. In this way, Hokusai creates a timeless and emotionally moving metaphor for man at the mercy of nature. He thus takes a specific artistic position that makes him interesting in comparison with European paintings by e.g. Caspar David Friedrich or William Turner who address a similar experience.

   

  The title and Hokusai’s name appear in the upper left corner of the print in Japanese script. The concept of combining image and script is typical for Far Eastern traditions. We can find more features that can be considered as typical for Japanese woodcuts: flatness, reduction of colours, graphic patterns (e.g. the light and dark stripes in the water) and black lines outlining or defining the objects. Hokusai uses these means with expressive exaggerations, which often take on caricature-like features, for example in the representation of the spray or the frightened fishermen in their boats.

   

  However, since Hokusai also uses Western pictorial principles, especially the conception of space and the idea of a dramatic climax, he created his own visual language, based on his reception of Western painting. This is significantly demonstrated by his treatment of spatial depth. Looking through the waves at the central motif – in this case Mount Fuji – from an observer's point of view is committed to the Western concept of perspective formulated in the Renaissance: the picture as a window to the world, which appears in perspective. In Hokusai's work, this European concept of space merges with the traditional Japanese art of colour woodblock prints, which was characterized by emphasized two-dimensionality, contrasting empty spaces, ‘abstract’ pictorial structures, and dynamic linearity. Hokusai's mediation between two culturally different pictorial conceptions ultimately led to his being more popular in the West today than in Japan itself.

   

  The opening of Japan after 1853, forced by US gunboat politics – and supported by European governments – triggered trade between Japan and the world. At first, some Japanese woodblock prints were used as packaging material, which may seem surprising to lovers of this art form today. Fortunately, they were discovered and enthusiastically received by artists in France. Among those were Hokusai’s prints and his popularity grew rapidly throughout Europe and elsewhere. The collecting frenzy of Japanese art (Japonism), which was also triggered by this, influenced Post-Impressionism, Art Deco and Art Nouveau and, in particular, architecture and design such as was taught at Bauhaus. Just as Western visual language came to Japan, Asian visual concepts now influenced art in Europe.

   

  Ukiyo-e

  Hokusai, trained in painting and woodblock printmaking, is considered a master of the multi-coloured ukiyo-e woodblock prints. From the early black and white prints, an extremely refined multi-colour printing process with up to fifteen woodblocks was developed during his lifetime. For the production of the plates and complicated printing process there were highly specialized workshops, for which – in our case – Hokusai provided the templates. Compared to other prints, however, relatively few plates were needed for the 'Great Wave': three for the different shades of blue, one each for the colour of the boats and the sky, and black and grey. As some of the prints found today show considerable traces of wear on the plates, we can assume that hundreds or thousands of prints were printed from the same plates. The peaceful Edo period (1603 - 1867) had led to new forms of expression as well as to the mass production of woodblock prints, such as those by Hokusai.

   

   

   

  ^[1]              At 3776 m, this volcano is Japan's highest mountain. Its shape is elegant and at the same time monumental, memorable and easy to recognize. In Shintoism it is a holy place. Moreover, as it has repeatedly been a "source of artistic inspiration", not only for Hokusai. It was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2013.

   

   

  published September 2020

  

  Nicole Schraner

  Grueto Uebo: Globalisation, Commercialisation and Politicisation

   

  Hokusai’s color woodcut, “The Great Wave”, is now one of the most famous images of Japan in the world. However, its meaning has changed considerably since it was created in the mid-19th century. This article examines the historical impact of “The Great Wave” against the backdrop of globalization, commercialization, and political instrumentalization. Selected examples demonstrate how the motif has become increasingly detached from its original historical and cultural context in the 20th and 21st centuries. Rather than viewing the diverse reinterpretations as a loss of meaning, the essay considers them to be an expression of the image’s enduring transcultural impact.

   

  Introduction

  Katsushika Hokusai’s “Great Wave” is now one of the most widely reproduced works in Japanese art history. From the nineteenth century onwards, the color woodcut attracted considerable attention in Europe and North America with the rise of Japonism. Fascination with Hokusai’s “ukiyo-e” prints, as well as those of other Japanese artists, continued into the 20th and 21st centuries, as demonstrated by numerous exhibitions in European and American museums.^[1] At the same time, the image increasingly moved away from its original context and took on new meanings.

   

  While Hokusai’s work was originally part of the popular visual culture of the Edo period, “The Great Wave” has developed numerous new symbolic meanings and interpretations in the 20th and 21st centuries. Christine Guth describes this process as the “biography” of an image, with its meanings constantly expanding through transcultural exchange.^[2]  Based on this idea, this article looks at how and in what contexts “The Great Wave” has been reinterpreted since the second half of the 20th century. Three aspects are examined in particular: the increasing commercialization of the motif; its use as a symbol for (environmental) disasters; and its role within Japanese and international visual politics.

   

  Commercialization, Products, Lifestyle

  The widespread commercialization of “The Great Wave” is a key factor in its enduring popularity. Since the second half of the 20th century, the motif has appeared on a wide range of products, particularly in museums. Posters, books, postcards and textiles featuring the print are often purchased as souvenirs. Despite being greatly simplified and placed in new contexts through its reproduction on a wide variety of surfaces, this type of commercialization usually retains some connection to the original work.^[3]

   

  

  Figure 1: Mug from the British Museum, © Private photo.

   

  Additionally, there are forms of commercialization in which any connection to Hokusai or to Japan is increasingly lost. In these cases, “The Great Wave” is selected as a product motif primarily for its perceived timelessness and visual appeal, rather than for its historical or cultural associations. Since the 1970s, numerous contemporary brands have used the image on T-shirts and other items of clothing. In these contexts, the image almost always appears in a modified form, as the emphasis lies on creating a visually striking design associated with a particular lifestyle rather than on producing a souvenir or a direct reproduction of Hokusai’s work. The sacred Mount Fuji, which plays a central role in the original composition, is often removed, allowing “The Great Wave” to function as a simplified graphic motif. This adaptation is especially popular among sports brands, particularly in the skateboarding and surfing scenes.^[4] In such products, the wave no longer refers to a specific work of art but instead conveys a sense of movement, freedom, and power. Consequently, the motif operates less as a reproduction of the artwork and more as a lifestyle-oriented design.^[5]

   

  

  Figure 2: Mural of the “Great Wave” and the Mattehrhorn with a surfer, Switzerland, © Private photo.

   

  This development demonstrates the extent to which “The Great Wave” has become detached from its original context, while the motif’s visual simplicity and high recognizability are precisely what enable and promote its recontextualization.

   

  “The Great Wave” as a symbol of (environmental) disasters

  In addition to consumer culture, the use of “The Great Wave” as a symbol of disaster has played a central role in its modern history. As early as the end of the 19th century, the image was associated with tsunami events in Europe.^[6] From the 1960s onwards, this association became increasingly prevalent, as seen in the use of a simplified version of the wave as the logo of the International Tsunami Information Centre.^[7]

   

  However, this comparison is problematic. Scientists have pointed out that Hokusai's depiction is not of a tsunami, but of a so-called “monster wave”. ^[8]  Using “The Great Wave” as a warning symbol could therefore give a false impression of the natural phenomenon and lead to dangerous misconceptions. Nevertheless, the motif remains popular to this day thanks to its powerful symbolism and international recognition.^[9]

   

  Beyond its specific reference to the tsunami, “The Great Wave” is increasingly used as a general symbol of disaster. In political caricatures, monuments and media representations, it represents sudden, overwhelming events.^[10] The motif also appeared repeatedly in connection with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, for example in satirical depictions criticizing government decisions.^[11] In those examples, the wave can be seen as a representation of sudden danger, overwhelming force and violence – in short, of disasters in general.

   

  “The Great Wave” as a symbolic image of an international Japan

  While many contemporary adaptations of “The Great Wave” originate in the West, it is worth exploring its relevance in Japan. Although the color woodblock prints and drawings from the Edo period triggered a trend known as Japonism in the European art world at the end of the 19th century, they lost much of their significance in Japan during the same period and were even described as “vulgar”.^[12]

   

  However, although “ukiyo-e” art had lost its significance in Japan, its popularity in Europe and North America was well recognized. After the Second World War, the Japanese government deliberately used these traditional, popular images for international self-promotion. For instance, stamps featuring “The Great Wave” were designed to align with Western perceptions of Japan as a culturally rich nation, despite hardly reflecting post-war Japan.^[13]

   

  As part of the increased international marketing of Japanese culture since the 1990s, “The Great Wave” has also gained new visibility within Japan. It has appeared in tourism campaigns, public spaces, and international advertising strategies. Since 2024, “The Great Wave” has also featured on the thousand yen note. However, these marketing and product placements still primarily appeal to a foreign audience.^[14] So, what connection does Japanese society today have to Hokusai’s “Great Wave”?

   

  

  Figure 3: 1,000 yen note, reverse side. © Creative Commons.

   

  In his 2019 analysis of Japanese school education, Nobumasa Kiyonaga observes that “The Great Wave” plays a significant role in contemporary art education and is commonly addressed in the curriculum. His study shows that “ukiyo-e” color woodblock prints have become well established in Japanese schools and have shed their former “vulgar” stigma.^[15] Although Japanese society now recognizes “The Great Wave” as part of its artistic heritage, and the image is frequently cited in international contexts as a visual symbol of Japan, the significance attributed to it in Japan remains less than in the West.

   

  Conclusion

  The history of the “The Great Wave” illustrates how a work of art’s meaning can be transformed through global circulation, commercialization and political appropriation. As the motif has become increasingly separated from its original historical context, it has gained the flexibility to function in a wide range of settings.

   

  Following Christine Guth’s concept of an image’s biography, these diverse meanings should be understood as part of the image’s ongoing history.^[16] Today, “The Great Wave” serves as a visual template for depictions of waves worldwide, influencing shared perceptions of nature, danger, and motion across cultures. However, the image’s biography is far from complete. Through new media, political developments, and cultural exchanges, “The Great Wave” will continue to gain new meanings.

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  ^[1] This is evident from the numerous exhibition catalogues that have been published for these exhibitions. See: Boller (1945), Katsushika Hokusai 1760 – 1849, Zürich; Basil Gary (1948), The work of Hokusai 1760-1849: woodcuts, illustrated books, drawings and paintings, a catalogue of an exhibition held on the occasion of the centenary of his death, Ausstellungskatalog des British Musuem; Anon (1951), Rembrandt, Hokusai, Van Gogh, Ausstellungskatalog des Stedelijk Museums in Amsterdam; De Gruyter, W.J. (1952), Rembrandt, Hokusai, Van Gogh, Ausstellungskatalog des Kunstmuseum Basel; Anon (1955), Hokusai. Handzeichnungen und Aquarelle, Ausstellungskatalog des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg; Anon (1958), Hokusai (1760-1849) - dessins, aquarelles, estampes, livres, Ausstellungskatalog der Galerie Berès in Paris; Harold P. Stern (1960), Hokusai. Paintings and drawings in the Freer Gallery of Art Smithsonian Institution, Ausstellungskatalog der Freer Gallary in Washington D.C.

  ^[2] Christine Guth (2015), Hokusai’s Great Wave. Biography of a Global Icon, Honolulu, 11f.

  ^[3] See: Shop des British Museum, Version from 30.01.2026. https://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/inspired-by/inspired-by-hokusai.html?p=1

  ^[4] Well-known sports and lifestyle brands such as Roxy, Patagonia and HUF use the motif on a variety of clothing items.

  ^[5] Christine Guth (2011), Hokusai’s Great Waves in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Visual Culture, in: The Art Bulletin 93(4), 468–485, 24.

  ^[6] Guth (2015), Hokusai’s Great Wave, 55f.

  ^[7] See: International Tsunami Information Center, Version of 30.01.2026. http://itic.ioc-unesco.org/index.php ; Doak C. Cox (2001), The Inappropriate Tsunami Icon, in: The International Journal of The Tsunami Society 19(2), 87–92, 90.

  ^[8] Ibid., 91f.; Wendy S. Shaw, James Goff (2016), Misrepresentation in tsunami warning signage: iconic denial, in: GeoJournal 81(3), 333–336, 333.

  ^[9] For more on the dangers of misguided symbolism, see: Ibid., 335f.

  ^[10] Examples include the monument “Die Woge” (The Wave) by Tobias Stengel, created after the 2002 flood disaster in Dresden, and a monument in Smith Point County Park, New York, commemorating a 1996 plane crash. The wave motif becomes particularly abstract when it is used merely as a symbolic image, as with the “wave of refugees” on a float at the Cologne Carnival in 2016. See: Anon (2005), Woge auf der Augustusbrücke. Jury entschied über Gestaltung zum Thema Flut 2002, in: Dresden.de. Version of 30.01.2026. https://www.dresden.de/de/rathaus/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/archiv/2005/06/c_100.php ; Guth (2015), Hokusai’s Great Wave, 193f; Anon (2016), Zehntausende feierten Kölner Karneval, Bild 28, in: Kleine Zeitung. Version from 30.01.2026. https://www.kleinezeitung.at/international/4920991/Trotz-Sturmwarnung_Zehntausende-feierten-Koelner-Karneval-Anzeigen

  ^[11] Liu Caiyu, et all (2021), Japan’s public image crumbling after nuclear wastewater dumping decision, in: Globaltimes, Version from 10.09.2021. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1221726.shtml

  ^[12] Shigemi Inaga (2003), The Making of Hokusai’s Reputation in the Context of Japonisme, in: Japan Review (15), 77–100, 81.

  ^[13] Guth (2015), Hokusai’s Great Wave, 112f.

  ^[14] Michiko Mae (2013), Nipponspiration als transkulturelle Grenzüberschreitung in der Kunst. Japonismus und japanische Populärkultur, in: Michiko Mae, Elisabeth Scherrer (Eds.), Nipponspiration. Japonismus und japanische Populärkultur im deutschsprachigen Raum, Köln, 21–49, 23f; Nobumasa Kiyonaga (2020), Die Monsterwelle von Hokusai - Zur Wahrnehmung von Hokusais „Die grosse Welle vor Kanagawa“ an japanischen Schulen, in: Exploring Visual Culture, Version from 30.01.2026, 8. https://www.explore-vc.org/en/objects/katsushika-hokusai-nami-ura-the-backside-of-the-wave.html ; Reinhard Zöllner (2006), Geschichte Japans. Von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart, Paderborn, 425.

  ^[15] Kiyonaga (2020), Die Monsterwelle von Hokusai, 9f.; Shigemi Inaga (2007), Is Art History Globalizable? A Critical Commentary from a Far Eastern Point of View, in: James Elkins (Eds.), Is Art History Global?, New York. Revused version from June 2007, 1–18, 1ff.

  ^[16] Guth (2015), Hokusai’s Great Wave, 11f.

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  Elfriede Dreyer

  A colonial figure, Baartman’s birth date is unknown – she was born in the Camdeboo Valley somewhere in the 1770s and died in Paris on 29 December 1815. In 1810 Baartman was taken to London by her employer, Hendrik Cezar, a free black man of slave descent, and William Dunlop, an English doctor who worked at the Cape slave lodge. There she was put on display on stage, mostly in the nude, and became known as the ‘Hottentot Venus’, acquiring status as a peculiarity due to the ‘abnormal’ size of her genitalia and buttocks. In 1814 Henry Taylor (Hendrik Cezar) took her to Paris where she was sold to an animal trainer, Réaux, who made her amuse audiences. Specifically Baartman’s steatopygia – a common feature of the Khoikhoi female body – was the curiosity. (Mastamet-Mason (2014:113) argues that the Victorian bustle dress silhouette, which became fashionable in 1870 in Europe, can be attributed to Baartman’s physique, since Baartman was displayed in Europe between 1810 and 1815, and the bustle dress was only introduced in Paris in 1880.)

   

  Baartman came to be viewed as an anthropological freak and a sexual novelty, and she had to perform certain acts (such as mimicking savagery) against her will – first in carnivals, later in aristocratic salons and finally in brothels where she ended up as a prostitute. Georges Cuvier, Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the Museum of Natural History at the time, encountered Baartman in this context and started studying her in terms of scientific racism, mainly with the objective to establish a missing link between animals and human beings. Tragically, Baartman died in 1815 as a result of exploitation and abuse. Her genital parts and brain were initially preserved in Europe for further study, but after much deliberation (driven by Nelson Mandela) her remains were repatriated to her homeland, the Gamtoos Valley, and buried on 9 August 2002 on Vergaderingskop, together with the return home of other disenfranchised individuals under apartheid (Moudileno 2009).

   

  A number of problematics issue from this narrative. Firstly, Baartman’s body was considered to be abnormal and animal-like; yet the Europeans found her sexually attractive enough to have intercourse with her. The implication here is bestiality. In 2012, in I critiqued an article entitled ‘Africa’s repulsive charm’ of French anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle (2008) in which he launched an unmitigated review of perceived predominant Western perceptions of Africans, describing them inter alia as “intellectually degenerate”; “underdeveloped”; “descendants of the Old Testament Ham” and his “cursed and blood-infected progeny”. In short, he describes Africa as “a continent of utter horror, a theatre of primitive cruelty”, the very reason why “we” (the West?) think of Africa in a “libidinous and viral” [my emphasis] way, generating a line of thought so deep and wide that it “permeates the economic, social, cultural and religious domains”. I argued that Amselle’s polarisation of the relationship between the West and Africa – as deeply ambivalent and postulated as the attraction of opposites and ‘sexual intercourse’ – represents a prime example of Othering hate speech towards African people and reaffirms the continuing deep and wide divide between the West and Africa, which still undercuts Africa as a secondary role player and displays a modernist binary view of history. Baartman represented a sexual Other in the context of such a so-called libidinous attraction between Europe and Africa.

   

  Secondly, the Hottentot Venus was a figure of oppression and in feminist perspective she became a supreme symbol of objectification being subjected to the tyranny of the white male colonial gaze. Mastamet-Mason (2014:115) argues that until the twenty-first century, full-figured African women were considered “attractive, were respected, and their bodies represented wealth, fertility and good health”. (There are fattening houses used specifically to fatten women in West African countries, highlighting the fact that some African countries still value and idolise full-figured women (Mastamet-Mason 2014:115)).The Othering gaze is pertinently racial here, not only in personal terms in the Othering of body shape, or in terms of gender in the Othering of gender difference, but mainly in terms of cultural Othering in the European gaze at the nude African woman. The colonial, Westernised view on nude Africans is described by Benjamin Talton (in Jackson et al 2009:82) as follows: “Within European discourses on African cultural characteristics, African women were ‘silent icons of the primitive – the ultimate “others”’. Left largely undefined by Europeans obsessed with categorising people and places, African women became the epitome of Africa’s ‘darkness’. … Public ‘nudity’ was [considered as] symptomatic of a general lack of moral restraint among Africans; an outgrowth of their unbridled sexuality, and a testament to their need for Christian redemption.” The colonial European view was based on subjective perception, lack of factual information and mythologising of ‘dark Africa’, a view that seems to be persisting yielded by the cited Amselle’s article. In many African countries, limited economic and natural resources played a formidable role in determining people’s access to cloth and clothing that had nothing to do with intellectual capacity, intelligence or sexuality. In fact, since the 1950s there were several anti-nudist internal campaigns in Ghana and elsewhere. Men became clothed long before women, which formed part of the cultural view of woman as possession, but it was also due to lack of financial means to acquire clothing. Africa is vast, and it took long for traders to transport and distribute their wares.  However, in the case of Baartman, a very different scenario was playing out:  she was deliberately unclothed and exploited in the nude for sexual and entertainment reason, and her nudeness thus did not present as part of her cultural tradition.

   

  Thirdly, the Baartman narrative manifests as a discourse on ‘disposable’ bodies as ‘waste products’ of the colonial impulse. Following Braidotti (2011:6), it can be argued that the “disposable” bodies of “women, youth, and others who are racialized or marked off by age, gender, sexuality, and income, reduced by marginality, come to be inscribed with particular violence” in the regime of such powers. Baartman was not only perceived as an object of curiosity, but also as abject, representing those elements and groups of people in society that are perceived to be unwanted and should be eradicated. Politically and culturally the nurturing of notions of abject is potentially dangerous and a concept that in the past has led to genocidal regimes such as Nazism and apartheid. Currently the migrant crisis that many countries are facing has once again stirred such sentiments and actions, and in certain cases has even led to inverted racism or abjection in the redress of the past.

  The use of red water colour in Marasela’s Covering Sarah series conjures chilling reminders of the pain and suffering inflicted by the constructs of Othering and abjecting. The artist’s drawing lines on one hand remind of colonial travelogues inscripted with handwritten anecdotes, descriptions of journeys and scenes, and linear drawings of people, the land and other curiosities; on the other hand, it simulates running blood, pain and torment. The use of embroidery in Theodorah, Senzeni and Sarah I ambivalently harks back to both Victorian pastime and African women’s well-known craft of embroidery. Embroidery as an activity evokes associations of quiet meditation, but also of violence through the needle’s rupturing of the cloth. In the latter work there is suggestion of evocation, redress and reconstruction in the physical covering of Sarah with a cloth of some sort, thus a restitution of the past. The cloth becomes like a kind of honorary cloak, as evidence of Baartman’s elevation to celebrity or sanctified status.

   

  The Covering Sarah series affirms the volatility of cultural perceptions and conjectures about others, as well as the socio-political changes that have occurred in Africa affecting the discourses around body types and the clothed/unclothed body. The work reminds us of the dangers and vulnerabilities lurking in obsessive Othering and radicalising difference.

  About Senzeni Marasela

  Senzeni Marasela is a female South African artist of Zulu origin, born in Thokoza, KwaZulu Natal in 1977. She is currently completing a MA degree in Art History from Wits University (SA); she has exhibited widely in the national and international contexts; and she has been awarded several grants and residencies, for example from Devon Arts Residency (Scotland) The Ampersand Foundation and Axis Gallery in New York; The Thami Mnyele Foundation in Amsterdam; and the Kokkola Art Academy in Vasa. Her artist website is found at http://www.senzenimarasela.com.

   

  References

  • Amselle, J-L. 2008. Africa’s repulsive charm, translated by R. Baldinelli. Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture Volume 2, Spring, 2008:11 – 18.
  • Braidotti, R. 2011. Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. Second edition. Gender and culture: A series of Columbia University Press. New York: University of Columbia Press.
  • Dreyer, E. 2012. Functionality and social modernism in the work of untrained South African artists. Third Text (Vol. 26:6, November):767–780.
  • Jackson, S, Demissie, F, Goodwin, M (eds). 2009. Imagining, writing, (re)reading the black body. Pretoria: Unisa Press.
    Mastamet-Mason, A. 2014. The Saartjie Baartman body shape versus the Victorian dress: the untold African treasures. Open Journal of Social Sciences 02(08): 113- 120. DOI: 10.4236/jss.2014.28017.
  • Moudileno, L. 2009. Returning remains: Saartjie Baartman, or the “Hottentot Venus” as transnational postcolonial icon. Forum for modern language studies 45(2): 200-212.
  • Talton, B. ‘All the women must be clothed’: The anti-nudity campaign in northern Ghana, 1957 – 1969. In Jackson, S, Demissie, F, Goodwin, M (eds). 2009. Imagining, writing, (re)reading the black body. Pretoria: Unisa Press.

   

   

  published March 2020

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  Kerstin Pinther

  Moulding Tradition (2009) is a work done by the designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Studio Formafantasma: It consists of a group of five ceramics in different shapes and forms: boat-like bowls of various sizes, vases and bottles. Some of the maiolica objects display special attributes which refer to the sea and to rescue operations on the water such as a pair of paddles and lifebuoys. Others use ribbons, printed with historical and immigration data, to tie framed photographs and other ‘décor’ to the vessels. The project is informed by the tin-glazed maiolica from Caltagirone in Sicily – itself a result of the encounter with (Moorish) Islamic ceramic traditions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which in the following centuries triggered a technical and content-related process of adaptation. From the early modern age onwards, maiolica thus became “an excellent indicator and agent of design transmission across the globe” (Ajmar-Wollheim/Molà 2011, 17).

   

  Among the ceramic vessels being produced up till now is the genre of the so-called teste di moro – vases that in a stereotypical, often grotesque and derogative manner depict the faces of people referred to as either ‘African’ or as ‘Arabic.’ In their original form as busts they most probably date back to the seventeenth century, when they were used as flowerpots to decorate balconies and terraces, suggesting an exuberant vegetation. By replacing this generic image with a black-and-white photograph of a known and thus named immigrant from Nigeria, Sofien Adeyemi, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin update the references and create a link to recent migration movements. A flask with an attached ceramic tile lists the names of the countries Adeyemi has traveled through on his way from West Africa to Italy. His (multiplied) portrait together with written information on present-day migration policies is attached to the ceramic form, thus literally adding a new level of meaning. Yet another  wine bottle recalls fruit picking, predominantly done by migrant workers under harsh and exploitative conditions.

   

  By introducing further elements of reality in traditional forms, Formafantasma with Moulding Tradition create complex discourses on the historical and present-day entanglements between Africa and Europe and the imbalance in their economic and political conditions. According to the designers, “contemporary public opinion polls have claimed that 65% of Italians believe that the immigrants are ‘a danger for our culture.’” In this context Moulding Tradition speaks of the blind spots of contemporary culture: Neither the explicit transcultural character of the maiolica which had contributed to – if not established – the fame of Caltagirone’s craft tradition is valued, nor are the descendants of those who once introduced this new ceramic technique welcomed. Moulding Tradition also alludes to the fact that in the most recent age of globalization nearly everything – data, information, images, objects – is free-flowing, but some people’s movements from specific geographies are monitored and restricted. Thus, it questions the ideology of cultural segregation and confronts it with the factual migration of people and goods as well as with the various historical entanglements. Furthermore, Moulding Tradition, for which the designers cooperated with a local craftsperson, can also be read as a comment on the role of craft in contemporary society as well as on the question of how craft is sometimes “locked into a tradition repeating [moulding, author’s note] the same objects over and over again” (Studio Formafantasma 2015). In order to counter this tendency, the designers left their products with a kind of raw surface, since normally maiolica ceramic is painted in bold colors after being dried thoroughly. In the case of Formafantasma’s maiolica, the objects remain ‘unfinished’ – a (blank) space to metaphorically be worked on and to open up a debate. Thus, Moulding Tradition stands for Studio Formafantasma’s conceptual and critical design-thinking approach. In this approach, the duo relies on textual information as well as on the haptic and aesthetic qualities of the substances they use: “[M]aterials are not only functional but also have the ability to evoke memories or to testify historical knowledge” (Studio Formafantasma 2015).

   

  The authors of Global Design History make clear how the most recent phase of globalization not only accelerates flows of people, images, information, commodities and capital, but also contributes to the various types of exclusion and border control regimes (Adamson, et al. 2010, 1f.). At a time when design is becoming increasingly politicized, the question of how designers respond to the hitherto biggest wave of flight and migration in the years 2015/16 becomes obvious. Indeed, similar to Moulding Tradition, there are other design objects as well as works at the interface of design and art which can be seen as tools for reflecting on migration and flight. In using design as a tool, the migrancy reference can often be found on more than only one level. Besides its content-related presence, it is also tangible via the objects’ materiality or techniques, which for their part often bear traces of mobility and cultural transfer. Thus, these objects speak strongly to the historical and cultural migration of forms.

   

  References

  • Adamson, Glenn, et al., editors. Global Design History. Routledge, 2011.
  • Ajmar-Wollheim, Marta, and Luca Molà. “The Global Renaissance. Cross-cultural Objects in the Early Modern Period.” Global Design History, edited by Glenn Adamson, Giorgio Riello and Sarah Teasly, Routledge, 2011, pp. 11–20.
  • Studio Formafantasma. “Studio Formafantasma on Words as a Tool for Design.” Design Indaba Conference, Talk on November 3^rd 2015, http://www.designindaba.com/videos/conference-talks/studio-formafantasma-words-tool-design.

   

  published February 2020

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• 

  Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel

   
  Africans, including Ghanaians, had their peculiar way of life long before they encountered the colonialists. They had a robust governance structure (kinship system), laws and standards of beauty inherent in their beauty culture practices. The African society was orderly organised to the extent that there were minimal deviants. They had built no prisons for offenders, rather, their sense of communalistic living and religious practices shaped their modest way of life. Based on their customary laws and taboos, offenders atoned for their wrongdoings through rites and rituals which were enough corrective measures. In some cases, the corrective stigma associated with particular wrongdoing was enough deterrent to possible offenders. For example, someone who stole a bunch of plantains was made to carry the plantain on the head, and matched by multitudes through the streets of the community, announcing the offenses s/he has committed. Sometimes, offenders were sent to the chief palace for settlement of the case. The society was so organised and cultured to the extent that when the community became aware of the wrongdoing of an offender, s/he may not find a spouse or suitor in that community. Before arranging for marriage, the families of both parties engaged in serious investigation about the socio-moral backgrounds of both suitors regarding their behaviours in and outside the community. When a suitor had criminal records, the family of the suitors disallowed such a marriage. In personal communication with M. Opoku-Mensah (12th June 2020), he referred to a purported address of Lord Macaulay to the British Parliament on 2nd February 1835 which confirmed what pertained in precolonial Africa. Lord Macaulay reportedly said:

  
  “I have travelled across the length and breadth of Africa and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage…”

  
  Just as any society, this statement suggests that Africans also had the way of life, including the standard of beauty and makeover practices.

  
  Precolonial Ghana, as in the case of other Africans, held in high esteem their indigenous beauty culture standards. They held a complex standard of beauty embodied in their ‘Afrocultural aesthetics’ (Essel, 2017, p.25). Afrocultural aesthetics has to do with the conceptual and contextual hybridity of aesthetics that celebrate ideas expressed in artworks (Essel & Acquah, 2016) and the intended purpose of art, be it functional, symbolic or decorative. A work of art is considered good or beautiful once it served the purpose for which it was done. This implies that beauty is judged in context as well as the concept. The Afrocultural aesthetics also apply to the beauty culture practices of the people. One of the beautyculture practices precolonial Ghana held high was hair grooming aesthetic ideals. Hair occupied a central position in the scheme of social standing to the extent that it sent a message about the status of its wearer to the audience who understand such a language. One could differentiate a married woman from the others based on her hairdo in Ghanaian society. Hair was treated with natural hair softeners, conditioners, colourants, and accessories such as comb. Special combs that helped the people to keep the hair in good shape were fashioned by sculptors from wood, bones and metal. The combs were artistically shaped with symbolical essence just as the hair itself. What the precolonial African society did not do was to stigmatise the hair type and texture of their fellow Blacks.

  
  The advent of the slave trade, colonialism and Western education began to sew the inferior seed of black hair stigmatisation and discrimination. Gradually, this ‘inferior seed’ (Morrow, 2014) sewn has entered the educational institutions which should be the agent of change, centre of Black consciousness, character reformation centre and panacea of pan-Africanism has rather turned into Afrosaxons colonialist surrogates perpetuating Afrocentric hair stigmatisation against their educands (Essel, in press). In the effort to decolonise the bastadised and proscribed Afrocentric hairstyle practices in Ghanaian schools, this article explores the conflicting tensions in the process on the part of the school authorities, students and the parents.
  
  Decolonisation theories is central to this study. There exists different perspective on the subject matter of decolonisation. Some have looked at it from Euro-American perspective while others argued that the process remains incomplete when it is one-sided instead of two-sided, that is, looking at it from the perspective of the colonised and the coloniser. On this path, Wenzel (2017) examined the multiple objects and aspects of decolonisation namely, political economy, epistemology, culture, language and nature, and theorised that there exists unevenness and incompletion of the decolonisation process. By studying the various roles played by the colonisers, anti‐colonial nationalists, and Cold War superpowers in decolonisation, Wenzel (2017) observed that postcolonial independence did not necessarily bring national liberation. This liberation in my view includes mental emancipation, and redefinition of Africanness, believing in
  ourselves.

  
  In the encounter of the colonialists with the colonised, the former has painted monstrous and negative perceptual image about the latter which has affected the way of life of the latter.The colonialist projected their standards of beauty and art to the colonised and spoke ill of that the colonised to retard social progress and prolong colonial domination of the latter (Nkrumah, 1963).By so doing the colonialists’ beauty culture standards have been ingrained and practised in academic institutions and everyday life and has seeming override indigenous beauty culture standard of the colonised. In line with this, the decolonisation concepts that guides this study is that, the African needs to be measured by his/her cultural beauty standards that does not breach the fundamental laws of his nation or state. The African must gain national cultural consciousness and must not be necessarily be measured with the standards of the colonialist (Nkrumah,1963; 1964). Before the Black Hair Stigma in Precolonial Ghana There are different types of hair ranging from type 1(a, b, c), 2(a,b,c), 3 (a, b, c) and 4 (a, b, c). The types were classified according to the straightness, waviness, curl patterns and kinky look. Hair may also be described in terms of its texture, density, porosity and colour. These characteristics of hair
  differences may manifest in individuals, groups, society or race. Despite the differences in hair type, all people of the world belong to one race, that is the human race (Elliot, 2016). Even among Blacks, there are differences in hair type. Precolonial Ghana was made of different ethnic groups of which the Akan were the majority. Though they were of different ethnicities, they did not discriminate against each other on the basis of their hair type or hairstyle. The people wore different hairstyles based on their ethnic affiliations, beliefs and practices, social status, and to celebrate events such as festivities and or funerals. Sometimes the hairstyles were worn for art sake. The hairdos had performative importance, semiotic power, and engendered identity. For
  example, queen mothers wore a kind of hairdo named dansinkran (Figure 1) known for its iconic stature amongst the chiefdom.

   

  

  Figure 1: A woman wearing the dansinkran hairstyle. (Image courtesy: Godhit, 2017).

  
  The hairstyles of the people ranged from natural dreadlocks popularly called rasta (known in Akan language as mpɛsɛmpɛsɛ), Afro, braiding, plaiting, shaving and African wigs. Though the word rasta is regarded more as a Jamaican phenomenon, mpɛsɛmpɛsɛ (which was named rasta) existed in some parts of Africa including Ghana in precolonial times. Some were born with the rasta. People born with rasta were considered by society as special beings, for that matter sacred. Apart from that, some priests and priestesses wore dreadlocks or afro. Cowries were placed in the rasta or afro hair of some priests and priestesses for symbolic, decorative, religious and ritual purposes. In this article, the term rasta is used in the context of both natural and artificial dreadlocks in precolonial, colonial, postcolonial and contemporary times. Again, the term Afro was introduced in the 1960s in reference to African American grown hair. From this word came Afrocentric. It is worthy of note that the enslaved Africans who were taken ashore had relatively long and grown hair. This was one of the hairstyles associated with males in precolonial Africa. The colonialists negatively described that hairstyle as bushy. Meanwhile,the long hair of the colonialists did not merit such a negative description. Till now, the term bushy hair connotes an offensive description of overgrown African hair. Many young Ghanaian people would prefer the term Afro to mean fully-grown hair than to describe their hair as bushy. Though the term Afro emanated from the US, the hairstyle was long in practice in many parts of Africa.

   

  One could differentiate between a maiden and a married woman just by looking at the hairstyles they wore. The people also used natural hair treatments that conditioned and softened it to keep it in good shape. The Akan often said ɔbaa n’enyimyam nye ne tsirhwin which literally means ‘The glory of a woman is her hair.’ This expression underscored why women in precolonial Ghana cared so much about their hair. They spent a great deal of their time in pursuance of their hair beauty culture practices. During puberty rites, female adolescents are given special education on hygiene, good grooming and hair beauty culture practices and treatments because of the premium society placed on the hair. Consequently, hair became a significant communicative symbol used to express moods such as bereavement, joy; and in some cases, power and authority. For example, a male child who lost his father, mother or close relation cut the hair down to the skin (Figure 2). He appeared hairless on the head as a sign of bereavement. Some Akan female adults wore a hairstyle called takua, done by holding the hairs together atop the head and with thread to stand upright. To them, such a hairstyle is design-less and simple in paying homage to the dead.

   

  Figure 2: Man with hair cut to the skin as a signal of bereavement. (Image courtesy: Godhit, 2017).

   

  Slave Trade, Colonialism and Western Education in Black Hair Stigmatisation

  
  Precolonial Ghana had its own well-established form of education, evolved by the people themselves (Sampson, 1932; Essel, 2019) before their encounter with the colonialists. They trained the young ones through a rigorous enculturation process and apprenticeship system. They passed on the artistic culture and way of life from generation to generation through the robust apprenticeship system which is formal education and training (Essel, 2019). Training of the young ones was the duty of the immediate and extended families as well as other people in the community. It was for this reason that the precolonial society was described as living a communalistic life. In personal communication with M. Opoku-Mensah (12th June 2020), he referred to a purported address by Lord Macaulay’s to the British Parliament on 2nd February 1835. Macaulay had found that the people had strong cultural institutions that rule their socio-moral lives. In the said statement as pointed out by M. Opoku-Mensah (12th June 2020, personal communication), Lord Macaulay said to the British parliament:

  
  "I propose that we replace her [Africa’s] old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Africans think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."

  
  Macaulay’s statement was recognition of the plausibility and relevance of the precolonial form of education that catered for the good socio-moral upbringing of the people which seemed impervious. As he suggested, the way forward was to introduce their culture including the language and beauty standards which they did, and used the slave trade, colonialism and Western education as a weapon to achieve their malevolent ideological and social-imperialism agenda. With the advent of Western education in the 1500s, learners with afro and rasta were asked to cut their hair before they were permitted to enrol. Afro and rasta hairstyles were considered unkempt and cutting them signalled cleanliness. The Euro-Christian churches planted in precolonial Ghana also asked new Black converts with rasta or afro to cut them as a sign of born again. The mission schools also proscribed
  these hairstyles. In the name of religion, this practice continuously ate into the social-moral fabric of the society, especially, amongst the so-called Christian elite. In effect, this gradually contributed to afro and rasta hairstyles’ stigmatisation (Alhassan, 2020; Whiteman, 2010, Whiteman, 2007)). Those who wore these hairstyles, especially, the middle-class males and adolescents, were perceived as rascals, vagabonds, smokers, and unclean.
  
  Based on rereading of scholarly information and archival sources on Black hair, interviews and focus group discussion as a method of data collection, the study provided insight into the hair decolonisation process in Ghanaian Senior High Schools and the conflicting tensions associated with the process. The focus group consisted of Senior High School teachers with more than five years of teaching experience at that Senior High School level. Descriptive and explanatory case study designs constituted the research design for the study. The descriptive aspect was for the purpose of describingthe phenomenon (the ‘case’) in its real-world context while the explanatory case study aimed at explaining how or why some condition came to be (Yin, 2018).A sample of twenty-eight (28) participants consisting of heads (2), teachers (20), and students (6) were purposively sampled from the accessible population of fifty (50). Simple descriptive analysis formed the method of analysis. To ensure the confidentiality of participants, pseudonyms were used to conceal their identity.
  
  Conflicting Tensions in Black Hairstyles Decolonisation There have been reports of discrimination against the hairstyle of Black students in and outside Africa. During the 2015 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), three students of the St John’s Wesley Grammar School, Accra, Ghana were disallowed to write because they were wearing afro hair (Citifmonline.com 2015). In 2016, there were students protest in South Africa that questioned discrimination against African natural hair in class (Mwaura, 2016). Perry (2019) also reported Black hair stigmatisation which she sees as a vestige of segregated past that deemed blackness inferior and the emulation of whites as the route towards assimilation. This discriminative happening tells that black hair stigma persists in Africa even after colonialism. With the school as an agent of enforcing colonialists’ legacy of anti-Afrocentric hairstyle practices in primary, junior and senior high schools, specifically, rasta and afro, the practice
  has become deep-rooted to the extent that attempt by parents and learners to question it proves futile. Students are not happy with the enforcement, and at some point in time prove adamant to school authorities. Mirekua narrated her story:

   

  ‘I attended primary and Junior High School at Opah Municipal Assembly School from 2009 to 2012. There was a time I had to hide under my desk to avoid being sacked by the headmistress. I was given a warning at the assembly grounds to go and barb my entire hair. In my second year in Junior High School, I was told to go home and barb my hair because it would hinder me from taking part in the Basic Education Certificate Examination. I stayed home for a week because [after I cut my hair for] the fear of being mocked by friends seeing, as it was my first time of having a down cut.’

  
  Mirekua’s accounts reveal the feeling of uneasiness and low self-esteem she developed as a result of being reprimanded to cut her long hair. Her hair was cut because she must be in school or face sacking sanctions. Students who go contrary were labelled as bad or stubborn. Maame Esi, was a student in a Senior High School in the Western Region of Ghana. She completed in 2014. She confessed that she complied with the rules and regulations governing hair beauty practices in her school because she feared being suspended, sacked or disgraced at the assembly grounds of the school. Not complying with the dictates of school authorities on hair in itself is a stigma. The enforcement of these anti-Afrocentric hairstyles has been internalised to the extent that some members of the society may cast aspersion on those who wear such hairstyles. A male participant said his best friend was
  advised by the parent to Part Company with him because he left his hair to grow long. ‘My grandmum told me to keep my hair… One of my friends developed a cold attitude towards me afterward. When I asked, he told me that the parents have asked him to keep his distance from me because… I have become a bad boy. Only bad boys leave their hair without cutting it’, he said.

  
  These vignettes of the students revealed that students kowtow to the hairstyle enforcement to avoid negative labelling by the school authorities and their own colleagues. There were others who also left the public school to attend a private school who were lenient with Afrocentric hairstyle restrictions. In a focus group discussion among 20 Senior High School teachers drawn across eight regions of Ghana, the issues that emerged were that students who wore afro and rasta are perceived as deviants and ill-mannered people who do not abide by the rules and regulations of the school. This is because the school proscribes wearing of these hairstyles. To
  the teachers, students appear as adults when they wear afro and rasta hairstyles which do not distinguish them from the teachers. Succinctly put, ‘They appear like mothers and fathers’ than students in those hairstyles. In addition, they argued that wearing such hairstyles in school generates competition amongst the students as they may strive to put up flashy hairstyles and put little or no concentration on their academic work. As a result, they only permit students to wear rasta or afro on health and religious grounds. As explained earlier, hairstyles have religious implications in Ghanaian society. For example, afro and rasta have a strong affinity with African Traditional Religion, which is the authentic religion in precolonial Africa. A teacher explained that: Well, from my little knowledge, I know that … priest and priestesses do not barber. Secondly, some students have soft scalps making it easy for them to catch cold anytime their hair is down. These categories of students could be allowed to wear dreadlocks or afro to school. A teacher who aligned to the Christian faith perceived these hairstyles as unacceptable. He said, ‘My religious background wants us to have a close [hair] cut as a Christian man.’ The teachers said the culture of the school does not allow afro and rasta. So, they normally use scissors on students’ hair. They also admitted asking students to go and shave their hair but when the students refuse, they sacked them from the examination hall or class, since they were not ready to shave their hair without any tangible reason. Students who wear afro are perceived as ‘weed smokers’. On the contrary, four of the teachers argued that wearing afro or rasta is normal since it
  borders on individual differences, and generally accepted in Ghanaian society. The issue is that these hairstyles become unacceptable when worn by students at the primary, junior and high school levels.

  
  In response to the question of rules and regulations regarding hair beauty culture standards of students in public schools, a teacher said:

   

  What happens is that the housemasters, housemistresses, and some teachers on duty often send scissors to the various classes or examination halls to give students awkward hair cut against the will of the students to force them to shave their grown hair. This is
  a kind of punishment given to the students for leaving their hair to grow. Some students, out of pain and dislike for such treatment, leave their hair in its awkward form as done by the teachers. Such students are often refused access to classes or examination
  halls; canned, suspended or asked to weed as punishment. Students comply in order to take classes or
  examinations.

   

  One of the participants has taught in five schools covering primary, Junior High School and Senior High Schools, with twenty-four years of teaching experience. She has taught in Ashanti and Central regions of Ghana, and currently a headmistress of a Senior High School. She opined that:

  
  With twenty-four years of teaching, what the schools consider a neat haircut is down cut. Rasta isn’t allowed. Any child who came to school with grown hair is either driven home or the parents are invited to the school and advised to shave the hair of the ward. Some
  parents come to explain to the school authorities that cutting the hair of their children has spiritual implications that may cause sickness to the child, so, the hair should not be cut. If the authorities disagree with them, it occasionally brings quarrels. Parents who
  disagree are told that their children could not fit in the school... Personally, I think those who smoke marijuana wear rasta [dreadlock]. Once they come into the school with this hairstyle, their mannerism, their characters are influenced. They might not be smoking, but other students, sometimes, see them as marijuana smokers… Actually, for my long years in teaching, most of our recalcitrant students, most of our problematic students, when you look at them from head to toe, you realise that the sort of dressing speaks to their characters too.

  
  The views of the headmistress-participant confirmed the thoughts of the teachers. The school expects learners to wear down-cut hairstyles as institutionalised by the colonialists. The school has done little or nothing to question the etymology of this self discriminating and self-stigmatising act they enforce hook, line and sinker. This negative enforcement has been instituted through a complex network of colonial apparatus namely Euro-Christianity, Slavery, colonialism and Eurocentric education making it difficult in decolonising the process. Any attempts to decolonise are faced with vehement opposition from Blacks to their fellow Blacks. Educated Blacks (Negroes) as pointed out by Woodson (1933, p. 7) ‘hope to make the fellow negroes ‘conform quickly to the standards of the whites and thus remove the pretext for the barriers between the races.’ Caucasians who attend Ghanaian public schools are exempted from this rule. Myjoyonline.com (2019, para 2, line 2 &3) reports of a leading member of a teacher union in Ghana who said: “what I gathered was that when Caucascians [Caucasians] students cut their hair to the level of black ladies, it makes them look very ugly and it can even affect their looks so Caucasian students are not allowed to cut their hair. There is no rule in the Ghana Education Service concerning Caucasians in Ghana because we are not Caucasians, we are negroes.”

  
  Some teachers also argue that when students are allowed to leave the hair to grow long, it attracts lice, eczema and dandruff. These comments demonstrate the anchored conflicting tensions in the decolonising process. Diseases associated with hair are curtailed when students are properly groomed by the school to follow body and hair hygiene protocols. Their hair does not attract hair and skin-related diseases because it is black or not good. Hair and skin diseases are no respecter of colour or race. Good hair has nothing to do with its texture, density, porosity or colour. It is a hair of any type that is well maintained and kept healthy. The position of the school teachers and authorities brings to mind Carter Woodson’s (1933, p. xiii) assertion that:

  
  When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.

   

  With this, Woodson looked at how the Negro has been miseducated to the extent that s/he exhibited ‘attitude of contempt to their own people’ (p.1). He also focused on the minds of Black people giving the right kind of education that would contribute to high self-esteem to their people. There are tensions and conflicts that ensue between school authorities and students on one hand, and school authorities and parents on the other hand. Students feel that such negative enforcement deprives them of their self-esteem, selfconfidence and uniqueness as individuals. Yet, they must abide by the colonialist monolithic mentality of wearing down-cut hair as a signal for obedience, neatness and smartness as required by the school to have access to education since noncompliance attracts harsh sanctions. Some parents who disagreed with the school authorities on the position of hairstyles, pick quarrels with the school authorities. Parents have the option of kowtowing or taking their wards from the school. One particular instance of a parent taking the school on is what happened in Achimota School on March 19, 2021, which became a national debate for more two weeks, and took a centre stage on social media, Ghanaian print (newspapers) and electronic media (radio, television, internet). One parent named Raswad Menkrabea took to his Facebook page to pour out his frustration about his son being denied admission on the basis of his rasta hairstyle. Raswad Menkrabea wrote:

  
  This morning, the school authorities of Achimota School claimed that their rules do not allow students with dreadlocks to be admitted. The school authorities denied two brilliant dreadlock students from being admitted after having been posted there by the Computer School Placement System [Computerised School Selection & Placement System]. My son was one of the affected children and the other student was also refused on the same grounds. We have no option but to battle against this gross human right violation. As a child he has every right to his culture in so far as such culture do not breach the 1992 Constitution. He equally deserves the right to access education within his culture just like other cultural believers. As a Rastafarian, I think that dreadlock do no way cause any
  harm which should even be a basis to be asserted by the school authorities. The fundamental questions to ask is what does our law
  say about right to one’s culture? Do you deny a child access to education based on his/her culture? Do public school rules override the supreme law of the land?

  
  This issue, which became a national debate in public transports and markets, attracted the attention of Ghana’s parliament in March 25 2021, based on which the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum assured the house that the Ghana Education Service (GES) will soon issue policy guidelines on students’ admission to all Heads of Senior High Schools in Ghana to bring finality to the issue.
  Wearing long or short hair plays no role in distracting students to focus on their academics. There are many renowned private schools in Ghana that do not proscribe students from wearing rasta or Afrocentric hairstyles. The school whether public or private has the primary role of grooming students to be creative thinkers with good time management skills. The hair students keep has nothing to do with their academic performance and socio-moral conduct.
  
  From the discussion, it has emerged that the public schools proscribe Afrocentric hairstyles with no substantial scientific evidence that wearing afro and rasta inhibits the acquisition of creative and innovative thinking, and academic performance or progress of the students. Neither have the schools established from their arguments that wearing Afrocentric hairstyles negatively impacts the socio-moral and cultural wellbeing of the Ghanaian society or indigenous culture. They point to no sound research that establishes the relationship between academic performance and hairstyle worn, and the relationship between hairstyle and social conducts of students. The conflicting tensions around the hairstyles cut across precolonial, colonial and part of global fashion, and create multiple conflicting meanings within the many-sided existence of Ghanaian hairstyles. This helps to show how unstable, changing, and multiple the meanings of the hairstyles can be. Yet the Ghanaian public schools enforce the colonialists’ discriminative legacy of stigmatising Afrocentric hairstyles in Ghanaian schools with monolithic mentality without questioning the roots of such segregative practices. Teachers have challenges with students because when they wear rasta, afro and other Afrocentric hairstyles, they do so to show seniority. In other words, do so to signal that they have come of age. Therefore, wearing afro or rasta by the public school
  students becomes a sign of rebellion and badness, while for the teachers they are signs of authority and respectability while this is not the case in the private school students. The difference between the public and private school policies creates a class division in the meaning of the hairstyles, where the Rasta and Afro styles become a sign of privilege.

  
  Again, the teachers also deprived students of their Afrocentric hairstyles because they think it makes students susceptible to skin and hair diseases. These reasons deduced from the argument of the teachers and school authorities are not convincing to parents and students which leads to student-teacher and parent-teacher conflicts. Students gained continued access to education only when they shave their hair. Their education is threatened when they refuse to conform to the rules and regulations on hair. Students wear rasta, afro or long hair for several different reasons. Some wear it for spiritual/religious obligations, aesthetics and for fashionability purposes. This interesting practice challenges the so-called tradition and modernity opposition since a pre-colonial religious meaning and a fashion meaning can coexist in the same style and space. It is discouraging that six decades after independence from the colonialists, there are pitfalls in an attempt to decolonise the Afrocentric hair stigma created by the colonialists through the churches and schools they established. Surprisingly, the public-school authorities in Ghana have tended to be colonialists’ agents enforcing the discriminative Afrocentric hairstyles in schools. It is recommended that the Ghana Education Service and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) must work together to review the hair policies for students, so that it will not be a bottleneck for students to have access to education, which is their fundamental right enshrined in the 1992 constitution of Ghana.

   

   

  References

   

  • Alhassan, S. W. (2020). “We Stand for Black Livity!”: Trodding the Path of Rastafari in Ghana. Religions, 11, 374, 1-10. doi:10.3390/rel11070374
  • Citifmonline.com. (2015). School bans students with ‘unkempt’ hair from writing WASSCE. http://citifmonline.com/2015/04/22/school-bans-students-withunkempt-hair-from-writing-wassce/
  • Essel, O. Q. & Acquah, E. K. (2016). Conceptual art: The untold story of African art. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 6(10),
    1203 – 1220.
  • Essel, O. Q. (2017). Searchlight on Ghanaian iconic hands in the world of dress fashion design culture (Unpublished Thesis).
    University of Education, Winneba.
  • Essel, O. Q. (2019). Decolonising Ghana fashion education and training history. International Journal of Humanities & Social
    Studies. 7(7), 381 – 392.
  • Essel, O. Q. (In press). Hair and body fashion identity narratives in ‘the Return of the Slaves’ exhibition.
  • Elliot, J. (2016, May 26). Elliot Jane on the Rock Newman show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF9s0as_d_4
  • Morrow, W. (2014). 400 years without the comb: Sewing the inferior seed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH7nNdz3ImY
  • Mwaura, W. (2016). South African schools under attack over Afro hairstyles ban. https://www.dw.com/en/south-african-schoolsunder-attack-over-afro-hairstyles-ban/a-19513159
  • Myjoyonline.com. (2019). Let it grow: Why the policy against long hair in schools must beabolished. https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/let-it-grow-why-the-policyagainst-long-hair-in-schools-must-be-abolished/
  • Nkrumah, K. (1963). The African genius. Speech delivered by Osagyefo
    Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, President of the Republic of Ghana, at the Opening of the Institute of African Studies on 25th October, 1963
  • .Nkrumah, K. (1964). Consciencism. Panaf Books Ltd.
  • Perry, A. (2019). “Stay out of my hair”: Black students need the federal government to tell schools to leave their hair alone.
    https://hechingerreport.org/stay-out-of-my-hair/
  • Sampson, M. (1932). Gold Coast men of affairs.
  • Wenzel, J. (2017). Decolonization. In I. Szeman, S. Blacker, & J. Sully(Eds.), A Comparison to Critical and CulturalTheory.
    https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118472262.ch28
  • White, C. M. (2010). Rastafarian repatriates and the negotiation of
    place in Ghana. Ethnology, 49(4), 303 – 320
  • White, C. M. (2007). Living in Zion: Rastafarian Repatriates in Ghana,West Africa. Journal of Black Studies, 37(5),677-709.
  • Woodson, C. (1933). The mis-education of the negro. Khalifah’s Booksellers & Associates.
    Yin, R. K. (2018). Case

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  Karimatu Dauda

   

  Many of the group of pupils that were trained on Bura culture and Bansuwe dance in Ruby Springfield College are from this ethnic group, Bura. However, a good number of these pupils did not have prior experience of the Bansuwe dance. Consequently, the facilitator who taught them the dance relied on videos of Bansuwe dance and songs, played through a computer and a portable speaker, to teach them the dance steps from the scratch. This was accompanied by direct demonstrations and direction by the facilitator. Although the facilitator is not a specialised dance teacher, she is from the Bura ethnic group and a skilled Bansuwe dancer who had been performing for many years.

   

  

  The lady in yellow was a parent of one of the dancers who came to cheer the dancers. The person in green is the principal of the school who also came to cheer the dancers. Cheering of dancers and throwing some money at them is a common practice in Nigeria. It is meant to both encourage and show appreciation to the dancers. (Photo: Karimatu Dauda)

   

  Bansuwe dance is popular among the Bura and is usually the preferred cultural dance at weddings, funerals and other important ceremonies. Yet, the experience in this school shows that there are a good number of Bura people whose children do not know the Bansuwe dance. Part of the reasons for this is that some of the children have never been taken to their villages where cultural practices are better sustained. The Boko Haram conflict in the region also discourages social gatherings which are often potential soft targets of insurgents.

   

  The cultural day events usually involve the presence and participation of pupils’ parents and other guests which makes it a good channel for the sustainability of culture. More girls ended up performing in the dance because many of the boys were unable to pass the final screening for the cultural day. The dancers were dressed in traditional Bura attire called Japta. The audience cheered the dancers and at intervals some would join the dance briefly. This dance was accompanied by traditional Bura music made by drums, xylophone, flutes and vocals.

   

  

  The boy with the basket was picking the money thrown to the dancers by the audience in appreciation of their performance. (Photo: Karimatu Dauda)

   

  The pupils, especially those from Bura, could easily learn more about the Bansuwe dance from their parents and relatives at home. Since dance often carries specific meanings within the social settings it is situated (Pusnik, 2010), there will not be a shortage of what to converse about concerning the Bansuwe dance. Traditional dance in Nigeria is used as a channel for communicating social values, sensitization and even carrying out social sanctions. In addition to these, Bansuwe dance is also used to convey merriment during ceremonies and sadness during funerals and each is reflected by the tone, tempo and messages of the music chosen.

   

  

  Bansuwe Dance (Photo: Karimatu Dauda)

   

  In the case of the cultural day of Ruby Springfield College, the dance was clearly conveying merriment and the central message of the song was that people should come together as friends and brothers. This message was according to the central purpose of the cultural day which was to encourage mutual cultural understanding among the pupils of the school.

   

  The excitement accompanying the performance of Bansuwe dance by the pupils of Ruby Springfield College is a testimony to the fact that it left a lasting impression on them. This is because, for some pupils, it represented the first time they witnessed and participated in the Bansuwe dance. This enthusiasm by pupils, and even by some parents, is behind the determination by the school to sustain the practice of the cultural day annually. This in turn will ensure that Bansuwe dance is sustained, as younger generations get to learn and participate in it every year at school.

   

  While the annual cultural day cannot be compared to dance subjects formally being taught in the classroom, it is no doubt a contribution to arts education albeit as an extra-curricular activity. It serves as the next best thing in the absence of a dedicated dance subject in the curriculum of schools. In addition, it will be an important space for the sustainability of Bansuwe dance possibly for many generations to come. It is important to sustain this dance because it is one of the few remaining cultural activities which brings together people of all ages, gender, and social status to interact equally on an informal basis. Such a gathering would provide a good space for the conversations on cultural sustainability.

   

  

   Bansuwe Dance (Photo: Karimatu Dauda)

   

  Arts education is part of the curriculum of primary, secondary and tertiary academic institutions in Nigeria. This does not mean, however, that the teaching of arts is done in every school in the country. The situation is further compounded by the fact that schools offering arts education are often selective about the arts subject they teach. In most schools, fine arts or creative arts make up the totality of their arts education subjects. While their creative arts subject includes lessons in music, dance and theatre, there are also dedicated music and theatre subjects in schools.

   

  In contrast, dance is hardly, if ever, exclusively taught as a subject in formal education settings. Like in many other countries, dance is not taught with the same frequency and depth as painting, theatre or music (Mosko, 2018). Even if there were a dedicated subject for dance education in the country, the hundreds of ethnic groups in Nigeria would make the choice of what dance to teach in formal education settings quite challenging. This is because a typical classroom is made up of learners from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Generally, arts education in the country is facing a number of challenges, as identified by Enamhe (2013), including the discouragement of children from taking arts subjects by parents, the fear of the perceived difficulty of the creative aspects is arts subjects, and the high cost of materials needed for arts education both for learners and academic institutions.

   

   

  References

  • Enamhe, B. B. (2013). The role of arts education in nigeria. African Journal of Teacher Education, 3(1), 1-7.
  • Mosko, S. (2018). Stepping sustainably: The potential partnership between dance and sustainable development. Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development, 20(1), 62-87.
  • Mtaku, C. Y. (2020). Continuity and change: The significance of the tsinza (xylophone) among the bura of northeast Nigeria. Center for World Music – Studies in Music, Universitätsverlag Hildesheim.
  • Pusnik, M. (2010). Introduction: Dance as social life and cultural practice. Anthropological Notebook, 16(3), 5-10.

   

   

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  Amanda du Preez

  The first selfie selected is taken by a reporter Yuzrig Meyer who reported for the Bushradio blog and is taken in Cape Town with students congregating in the background. The second selected image is taken by Michelle Gumede for the student paper Wits Vuvuzela of a student of the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) enrolling in January 2016, while the university campus is locked down by security guards and police officers after bloody clashes between students and police.

   
  The two selfies should be differentiated as the first image is an actual selfie (image maker and taker are the same person) while the second is an image of a selfie-taker (Image maker differs from image taker). In the first image the direction boards towards CPUT CT (Cape Town University of Technology) campus, and the Damelin building (Private Tertiary Training Institution) in the background are clear indicators of its location. The selfie-taker is visible in the righthand side of the image forming a montage by merging his own image with that of the protestors in the background. The second selfie-taker is wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan #FeesMustFall while making a typical selfie ‘duckface’ with the security guards looking on in the background. She is provoking the security guards by asserting her presence as a protestor in their midst.

   

  The two images are selected to engage with the growing selfie scholarship also in the field of image studies. The selfie has predecessors in the rich tradition of artists painting portraits and self-portraits, and then democratized further with the invention of photography as a means of self-expression to include a broader audience and artistry. Until finally in the contemporary moment anyone with a smartphone can create a self-portrait or rather, take a selfie. The two images sampled here showcase the expressive and participatory possibilities of selfies as voicing dissent against the powers that be on the one hand, and on the other hand, showing solidarity with those uprising. As such they form part of a new visual activism that is created via online participation and images.

   

  Interpretation(s):

  The selfie is notorious for its insertion of the human subject into the digital sphere that appear ubiquitously on social media platforms. More than any other mediating technology the front-facing smartphone has enabled the human subject to create and capture images of the self as never before. The immediacy and the circulation of selfies are extraordinary.

  Depictions of the self is however not a new venture within the history of images, in fact, any reflective surface has sufficed as a tool for creating self-images in the past. Most notably the mirror which shares an intimate relationship and history with self-portraiture and self-representation. The progenitor of the selfie can probably be found in Andy Warhol’s self-portraits taken in photo booths (circa 1964-1965). The selfie that became a substantial category on its own since 2012 and 2013 has elevated self-expression to a new level. The two selfies collected here fall within the insertion of agency within the image, as both photographers insert themselves and their subjects within political events. In the first selfie, the creator can only be seen in the bottom half of the image so that the world behind him becomes visible. In the second selfie, the photographer also puts the selfie-taker on display surrounded by an environment of contestation. The images state: look at me but even more importantly, look over my shoulder at the world behind me. I am a witness to these events, and by sharing this image with you, you are also now becoming complicit and a witness to the event. It is a calling forth of a visible agency.

  The attempt of the artists to show his or her witnessing of an event – being there – is also not a new endeavour in the history of images. We are reminded of Jan van Eyck’s (1390-1441) signature and presence left in the small mirror in The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), and later Diego Velázquez’s (1599-1660) mocking presence in the company of royalty in Las Meninas (1656). In all these instances, the artists insert or interject themselves into the picture plane. In the case of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s (1880–1938) Self-Portrait as Soldier (1915) we see the artist inserting himself into the horrors of war, with an arm lost (although only imaginary), trying to work through the aftermaths of terror. Granted it is not the same interjection we see as in the case of the selfies but one may argue that something of that tradition of witnessing, making present, announcing an event is already born in these earlier examples from Western art history.

  The selfies selected here as part of the #FeesMustFall events testify to being present to a historical event and also to being interpellated into the activities. Interpellation as used by the French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser shows the status of the individual as always already being a subject subjugated in terms of power and ideology. The selfie makes that power hegemony visible as the subject negotiates his or her status apropos the powerful and ideological hegemony. There is an awareness in the #FeesMustFall selfie that not only bears witness to the riotous event but also positions the self in a particular participatory and supportive position towards what is happening. As Yuzrig Meyer euphorically states about his participatory #FeesMustFall selfie: “I may not have been around in the apartheid era in freedom struggle as an active participator, but from my experience of today I (sic) may have a better understanding to what it was like to be in the atmosphere of passionate comrades and the feeling of camaraderie in the air.” It is both an act of uncovering how power works, by making power visible, especially in the second selfie, and showing solidarity with the riots by inserting the face of selfie-taker as a montage onto the events in the background, as in the case of the first selfie.

   

  These two selfies could also be interpreted as decolonising images as they disrupt what can be considered to be colonizing powers and assert themselves as agents of what Nicholas Mirzoeff (2011) terms “the right to look” and moreover, asserting “the right to be seen”. These two images refuse to look the other way by pretending nothing is happening. Instead, they inject themselves into the event and confront us as viewers with their message.

   

  Discussion of the interpretations:

  If we accept the interpretation that these two selected examples of selfies create a new decolonized agency by inserting themselves as both witness and participant of the #FeesMustFall events, it can be suggested that selfies allow for an expansion to the gamut of the traditional self-portrait. The contribution or democratic expansion of the selfie to the history of self-portraiture can be identified in at least the following three categories, namely skills required, immediacy, and generating a broader reach expanding the self-portrait genre. These three categories are not exhaustive but add to the meanings attributed to the two #FeesMustFall selfies.

   

  In the case of skills, one does not require much talent or particular artistic skill to take a selfie. Where the self-portrait traditionally required set skills in the medium utilized for creating the self-portrait, whether painting, sculpture, etching or photography, the artists had to master basic techniques. This is not the case for producing a selfie. One merely requires a front-facing smartphone and the willingness to share in order to create a selfie. In this respect the selfie can be interpreted as a democratizing tool.

   

  Similarly, whereas the creation of a traditional self-portrait mostly implied time (duration) and space for the artwork to be executed and to be exhibited, the selfie can be immediately uploaded online and shared. The selfie also potentially has a far broader reach than the traditional self-portrait as it can be viewed by hundreds (conservatively estimated) of viewers immediately after being shared. The selfie thus further democratizes the self-portrait by being available instantly and anywhere. The selfie is not bounded by time or place and space, as is the traditional self-portrait – it crafts a tele-presence.

  Although, like all images the selfie is a complex and multi-layered occurrence and therefore not all selfies produced can be considered as democratizing and destabilizing agents. What is however accurate for most selfies is that they expand the genre of self-portraiture in significant ways.

   

   

  published November 2019

   

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  Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh

   

  The Ghana National Pavilion at last year’s 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia served to augment the fervent energy of contemporary art already simmering in its locality. The Pavilion staged a stellar intergenerational selection of six “multi-local”¹ artists from Ghana— Felicia Ansah Abban, El Anatsui, John Akomfrah, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Selasi Awusi Sosu and Ibrahim Mahama— whose works range between photography, painting, film, video, and installation. Stationed in the Artiglierie within the Arsenale, the Pavilion displayed the artists' works in continuous cylindrical enclosures designed by architect David Adjaye, and executed with laterite soil couriered from Ghana. The nation’s debut outing at the Biennale, titled Ghana Freedom, summoned the “boundlessness” and euphoria in the spirit of self-determination promised in its mid-century Independence moment and epitomised in such cultural events as the World Festival of Black Arts— the first being Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (FESMAN) which took place in 1966 in Dakar, Senegal, and then the Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) which happened in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977. “There is no longer any need to look back in the same way as an act of reclamation or reaction”, writes the curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim, since “these pathways remain with us and evolve”(Ayim, 2019, pp. 31).

   

  The emancipatory ideal summarised in the titular of the exhibition is a poignant basis for this evolution given the colonial mediation of Ghana’s formal education in general, and art education in particular (seid’ou, 2014; seid’ou, 2016). In this regard, Ghana Freedom could be said to have countenanced an approach to the practice of art that is unconstrained by the de-contextualised imposition of the beaux-arts tradition which became ingrained through colonial instruction in the Gold Coast (pre-independence Ghana) from the late-19th century to the late-1950s, and which prevailed in the postcolonial mediation from then till the first decade of the 21st century. Exhibitions of this dispensation predominantly lacked curatorial direction. Indeed, the Ghana Pavilion, however obliquely, can also be said to have announced the inventiveness of emergent exhibition practices in the country. For example, Ibrahim Mahama’s early site-oriented and itinerant exhibitions in public places is a pragmatic and critical response to the derelict infrastructural conditions an art practitioner in the country has to contend with. Mahama’s attitude to this systemic neglect is traceable to the interventionist ethic and affirmative politics of blaxTARLINES KUMASI.²

   

  It goes without saying that  the spectacular occasion of the Pavilion accumulates cultural capital for the nation in asserting a compelling place and reputation as far as the global mainstream of art is concerned— more especially for a nation which has been treated as a footnote in literature on the history of art in Africa. It is therefore our task to, so to speak, “brush history against the grain” (Benjamin, 1969, pp. 257) by practically intervening in it through such exhibition making ventures. In this vein, the success of the Pavilion highlights two major points for discussion.

   

  The first is a dialectical situation. At a time when cultural institutions and producers are enduring famishing conditions as far as state support or infrastructural systems are concerned, the state has demonstrated that it is possible to alter this fate— seeing as the Ministries of Finance and that of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, respectively supported and commissioned the Pavilion. But now that the impossible has happened, one would have thought that prioritising a National Pavilion would pave the way to launch serious longterm cultural policies ensuring continued presence in Venice itself, and also to invest in and build the necessary economic and cultural support structures for those local practitioners who are in dire need of it. As this is yet to happen, it will be crucial for Ghana to sustain the legacy of the Pavilion beyond the rhetoric of representation, even if it turns out to be a one-time affair.

   

  Secondly, turning our attention to local relevance, the intention of the organisers to, later that year,  bring the exhibition to the National Museum of Ghana to be able to show it to local audiences and to generate new knowledge has yet to materialise, for whatever reasons.³ This is unfortunate given the curator’s unequivocal concern for institution building and the “possibilities of artistic development in Ghana itself” (Ayim, 2019, pp. 140). If we keep in mind, apropos Borges, that every exhibition, at any given moment, based on its arguments or claims, “creates its own precursors” and therefore holds the potential to alter our conceptions of both past and future within that genealogy,⁴ then it presently counts as a missed opportunity not to have optimised Ghana Freedom in terms of creating history rather than solely staging one. What I mean is that the exhibition could have served as an epistemic site through which to actively produce and update the history of contemporary art in Ghana. For example, by citing⁵ or acknowledging the timeliness in the return of the exhibition to the National Museum falling on the 20th anniversary of South Meets West⁶ — the seldom talked-about contemporary art exhibition of African artists based on the continent and in the diaspora which also took place at the National Museum in 1999 with an artist lineup including Atta Kwami, Tracey Rose, and Yinka Shonibare— in addition to such “precursors” as FESMAN, FESPAC and “Authentic/Ex-centric".⁷

   

  Such an instance would have contributed to the intellectual legacy of Ghana Freedom in fulfilling the task of theorising the newly emergent curatorial and artistic paradigms in Ghana, all the while establishing the critical connections, differences, and evolutions between postcolonial and transnational antedatings of such political attitudes to exhibition making. This is especially important when we take the emancipatory promise of contemporary art seriously by considering the exhibition as a system that is not only meant for [re]producing spectacular displays, while taking the commodification of art for granted, but as one which deploys the convergence of symbolic and material consequences enveloped in the immanent tensions of history and power. Particularly when we acknowledge that the National Pavilion structure of the Venice Biennale impedes the institution from turning towards the non-imperialist substance of contemporary art.⁸

   

  It remains to be seen how far representation of culture as the sole basis of participating in such blue-chip events as the Venice Biennale can get us⁹ (or any nation with egalitarian aspirations for that matter). Let us also not forget that biennales have not always existed, nor should they necessarily always exist in the future.¹⁰ Accepting this, at least, cautions us not to take its existence as well as what it promises for granted. If we succeed in the latter it breeds conformism which can be opposite to true freedom. To boot, the present COVID-19 pandemic has gone a long way to expose the fragility of existing exhibition conventions as it threatens to revolutionize our economic, socio-cultural, health and political sectors on a planetary scale. The institutions by which we traditionally associate the production, circulation and experience of art— i.e. galleries, museums, the art market, etc.— have all suddenly ground to a halt and are facing the challenge to structurally rethink their modus operandi. Therefore the future of exhibition making, as we know it, is what is currently at stake. We are confronted with the task, now, as in previous times in history, to be more inventive with the exhibition form. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, artistic director of Sonsbeek (2020-2024), articulates this grammar of contingency well enough in the epigraph.

   

  Where Ghana goes from here in verifying art as an egalitarian universality and creating particular models to suit its locality is entirely up to us, its protagonists. And so the question becomes, when such real threats and crises have paled the superficiality of representation (in other words, when all the pomp and pageantry of Ghana Freedom has disappeared), what will its historical substance be posthumously based on?

   

   

  Read more on the Ghana pavilion from a different perspective: "Red Ghanaian Soil" by Natalie Göltenboth

  About Selasi Awusi Sosu's presentation at the pavilion see: Link

  About Ibrahim Mahama's "Savannah Center for Contemporary Art" in Tamale see: Link

   

   

  Footnotes

  ¹Taiye Selasi uses this term in her essay Who is Afraid of a National Pavilion? in Ayim (2019 pp.38-44).

  ²Both Mahama and Selasi Sosu are alumni of KNUST and active protagonists of blaxTARLINES who espouse these transformations. This internationally networked collective has been functioning as the contemporary art incubator in the Department of Painting & Sculpture in Ghana’s foremost Art College at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) since 2015, and has radically upended the hegemony of salon style display formats erstwhile ubiquitous in commercial galleries, hotel lobbies, and other spaces which had contrived the realisation of artistic potential primarily for the patronage of tourists.

  ³Nana Oforiatta Ayim confirmed in her lecture in ibid. (in June) after its opening on May 11th that the show would be at the National Museum of Ghana later that year.

  ⁴I appropriate this thought from Jorge Luis Borges in his essay Kafka and his Precursors (1951).

  ⁵By citing, I do not mean merely mentioning (since the curator succeeded in mentioning FESMAN, FESPAC and “Authentic/Ex-centric” as precursors), but through curatorial research, and coming to terms with their historical, theoretical, and aesthetic substance and formulating an argument that deals critically with the claims and implications of these events through an analysis of their significance to our own epoch. 

  ⁶South Meets West is an exhibition organized by Kunsthalle Bern and Historical Museum of Bern in collaboration with the National Museum of Ghana which happened in Accra in 1999 and travelled to Bern in 2000. The exhibition curators are Dr. Bernhard Fibicher (Kunsthalle Bern, assisted by Eszter Gyarmathy), Dr Yacouba Konaté (Université d’Abidjan-Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire), Dr. Yvonne Vera (National Gallery Bulawayo, Zimbabwe). Participating artists are Jane Alexander, Fernando Alvim, Meshac Gaba, Kendell Geers, Tapfuma Gutsa, Atta Kwami, Goddy Leye, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Tracey Rose, Yinka Shonibare, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Yacouba Touré, Minnette Vári, and Dominique Zinkpe. The catalogue included texts by Oladélé A. Bamgboyé, Dr. Bernard Fibicher, Kendell Geers, Clive Kellner, Dr. Yacouba Konaté, Atta Kwami, Simon Njami, Prof. Joe Nkrumah, Tonie Okpe and Sarah Zürcher. See South Meets West (2000).

  ⁷Oforiatta Ayim acknowledged her debt to Salah Hassan’s and Olu Oguibe’s curated exhibition at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, Authentic/Ex-centric: Africa In and Out of Africa. See Ayim (2019. pp. 140).

  ⁸Oforiatta Ayim commented on the problematics of this in our public conversation in op. cit. @thestudioaccra. (2019). Taiye Selasi also points at this issue in her catalog essay.

  ⁹The curator of the Pavilion, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, states her motivations for realising the Pavilion as such: “One of my driving forces [for being in Venice] is this idea of representation— of voice, of narrative— of who gets to speak the narrative.” She made this statement in a public conversation I had with her at @thestudioaccra. (2019, June 27). Ghana Pavilion Venice Biennale: Conversation with Nana Oforiatta Ayim. [Facebook post]. https://web.facebook.com/accrastudio/photos/a.1118364178194088/2491384694225356/?type=3&theater. Audio of lecture is in author’s archives, courtesy @thestudioaccra. 

  ¹⁰I appropriate this thought from Walter Benjamin who, in a similar spirit of contingency, was speaking particularly of the novel form in literature. See Benjamin (1998. pp. 89).

   

   

   

  References

   

  • Ayim, N. O. (Ed.). (2019). Ghana Freedom: Ghana Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia [catalogue]. Koenig Books.
  • Benjamin, W. (1969). Theses on the Philosophy of History. In Hannah Arendt (Ed.) Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Schocken Books.
  • Benjamin, W. (1998). The Author as Producer. In Understanding Brecht: Walter Benjamin. Verso.
  • Mitter, S. (2020). Art Biennials Were Testing Grounds. Now They Are Being Tested. 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/arts/design/art-fairs-biennials-virus.html. Accessed 6th May, 2020.
  • seid’ou k. (2006). Theoretical Foundations of the KNUST Painting Programme: A Philosophical inquiry and its contextual relevance in Ghanaian Culture [Unpublished PhD Thesis]. Kumasi: KNUST.
  • seid’ou, k. (2014). Gold Coast Hand and Eye Work: A Genealogical History. Global Advanced Research Journal of History. Political Science and International Relations ISSN: 2315-506X Vol. 3(1). pp. 008-016.
  • South Meets West exhibition catalogue. 2000. Kunsthalle Bern, NÀWÁO. ISBN 3-85780-124-7.

   

   

  published May 2020

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  Jane Otieno

  

  Detail (Photo: Avi Sooful)

   

  The woman who seems to be in a reflective mood, shows a reserved demeanor and sadness. The face is not shaded, maybe to allow the viewer to project themselves more into the work and to give a clearer interpretation of the mood. The work done in ink probably with a filt-tip or a ball pen by use of line technique is effectively rendered in flowing, horizontal, curved and vertical manner to project her character and what she stands for.The good grasp of the leading lines sets the work in time and emotion. It creates a feeling of harmony between the individual and her surroundings and successfully portrays an element of resiliency in the midst of uncertainties. The subject’s predominance intimates to the viewer her feeling of absolute command of her surroundings with her well-coordinated and symmetrically placed figure. The woman communicates beyond the physical likeness and tells the viewer something about her character. There is no reason not to believe that she is protective of her space, bears compassion, at the same time, not afraid to share her feelings, pain, emotions and empathy that connects with others in openness.

   

  

  Detail (Photo: Avi Sooful)

   

  The writings written in red color,  that reads ”Tanah, air, bumi, panggil, aku ibu” (Indonesian, to be translated as ”land, water, earth, call me mother”) around the neck is glaring and tends to hold the entire work in place. It is a strong message intended to communicate to the viewer on environmental awareness and conservation of natural resources. Perhaps a deliberate attempt by the artists to draw attention to the area, helping to convey thematic ideas that distinguish the woman from the rest of the picture. The necklace has a pendant with a distinct shape of a baby, probably in the womb, is a symbolic reflection of continuity and a cry for protection for all, including the unborn. They too matter! The fine textured background has other people, holding hands in solidarity, a sign of peaceful co-existence and social commentary on issues faced.

   

  

  Detail (Photo: Avi Sooful)

   

  The woman is against the destruction of what she holds dearly, and can foresee everyday activities such as fishing destroyed. The trees create balance in the work, while Rhythm and movement run across the canvas with reflection of real life situations, with a natural background that enhances the theme. The work’s portrayal of versatility and fluidity cannot be ignored. The relationships and interactions between the activities in the background and the main figure creates a complex meaning on nature’s importance for the human survival. The creatively rendered items held on both hands form part of the attire, thus creating a visual interest that has symbolic value. The firm, full, protective hands, held close to her heart, are symbolic of the strength of a woman, giving an impression of a mother, caregiver and a nurturer. The woman, in her use of direct gaze says “This is who I am” with her direct expression. She attempts to explain herself, to unravel her character, to invite the viewer to her space even if only for a moment.

   

  The drawing which is both engaging and intriguing, depicts the experience of understanding the environment and its connection to everyday life, “the goodness of mother earth”. It shows unity of purpose whereby different cultures from different continents come together in solidarity to support a common cause as the bottom inscription says: “Masyarakat adat merayakan keberagaman” translated “Indigenous people celebrate diversity”. The work substantially cultivates through an emotional approach the development of a connection of various cultures with nature for a common good. It underscores the importance of art as best suited to examine human existence, and that of earthly surrounding that reflects in everyday experiences and confronts the terror of the universe.

   

  

   Detail (Photo: Avi Sooful)

   

  Portrayal of how women play important roles in the construction of social and cultural meaning of different societies is evident. The realization of the goodness of Mother Earth is also shown to be a collective responsibility of all. The subject, executed from frontal view, is a woman in deep thought and a suggestion of underlying hidden pain and struggle for social justice that is explicit in various cultures. Her pain in addressing the social evils is captured more in her facial expression. Art as an expression of what it means to be human, is seen in the work that has religious expression, cultural undertones and creative energy. The artwork depicts a mysticism that is fabricated and intertwined in the socio-cultural realm, religious beliefs within different cultures. A view shared by Kumail (2017) who notes that art is a product of society’s members and so also reflects the culture and traditions of that society. Community members help to shape and evolve their culture through their efforts in the production of art. At the point when a society establishes its own particular character, the next generation is born, absorbs this identity, helps to spread it, and educates the world about it.

   

  The black and white drawing portrays collective and creative abilities among different artists, with a show of a sense of togetherness that gives an idea of communal activity. The huge drawing distinctively points to the art of collaboration and understanding between different artists coming together for a common goal, which in turn, bonds them towards a shared future. The artists show their understanding of not only an aesthetic sensibility, but also an astute understanding of the local context, relationships and a co-creation process that engenders collective participation and ownership. The group work is a clear indication that artists do not function in isolation, and can use the visual language to transform a society. The work gives an impression of artists having good time as they work on one project thus creating a unique value of an artistic approach to community life and development. Lee, Lim, Liang, Zainuddin and Alhadad (2020) concur by stating that social issues are often unpacked when artworks are presented for sharing, eliciting further response, offering new opportunities for clarification, and imagination. The process thereby facilitates co-creation and joint decision-making because the finished product is not actually ‘finished’ as it continues to elicit reflection and dialogue. The arts are able to engage community in imaginative ways, creating a space for dialogue on community issues faced and also expanding the horizons of possible solutions.

   

  CONCLUSION

  Art is depicted in this work as a means of dealing with uncertainties and envisage of better future. The work expresses emotions that are not necessarily spoken but are powerfully rendered. The subject, overwhelmingly is suggestive of what the innate emotion is. The work brings in the significance of women’s voices and contributions as very critical in advancement of our societies. The artwork shows the diversity of artistic expression and how artists collectively use the visual language to transform a society. Different artists working together in one canvas, bring in different perspectives to properly convey the woman’s story that cuts across different cultures. The collaboration among the artists is a sure way of harnessing strengths and sharing resources through processes that foster mutual respect, shared decision-making and open communication. The artists show their understanding of not only an aesthetic sensibility, but also an astute understanding of the local context and a co-creation process, that gives rise to collective participation and ownership in development of society. Can interdisciplinary approaches to art appreciation widen perspectives of and sensibility to the meaning of art? Can collaborative creation of artworks across many media offer many avenues of self-expression and, is it an effective way in the teaching and learning of art in our institutions? How can art educators work collaboratively and explore the use of multicultural and cross-disciplinary teaching strategies in art education?

   

  REFERENCES

  • Kumail M. Almusaly (2017). Painting our conflicts: A thematic analysis study on the role of artists in peacemaking and conflict resolution. Nova Southeastern University. Department of Conflict Resolution Studies. College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
  • Lee, Lim, Liang, Zainuddin and Alhadad (2020). The unique value of the arts in community development: A case study of ArtsWork Collaborative. Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan. Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore & Singapore University of Social Science.   

   

  Photo credits

  Belinga, R.C. Institute of Fine Art Foumban, University of Dischang, Cameroon & Sooful, A., University of Pretoria, South Africa.

   

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  Ebenezer Kow Abraham

  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah and the Placemaking Paradigm  

  Within the rebranding and the making of new identity for Winneba as enshrined in the Effutu Dream Project, the name Theophilus Kwesi Mensah cannot be overlooked in this intercourse. This is not only because he engineered the widely talked about installations: the Unity Monument, The Aboakyer Monument, The Fishermen of Akosua Village and the Monument of Ofarnyi Kwegya but the awe-striking aesthetical connotations he incorporated in the aforementioned works. Each of these statues were rendered to mimic the idea of Winneba as a community built on a collective space.  Being native of Winneba, heightened his understanding of how the amalgamation of economic, political, and cultural activities in the past, would accord him the impetus to express himself publicly. In so doing, he empowered his sculptures to ventriloquy the unique narratives that define Winneba and redefine this relatively old settlement yet burgeoning municipality as a dwelling place or a place worth visiting.

   

  

   Figure 1: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Ofarnyi Kwegya, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. Yeepimso Community Centre, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  Through the lens of placemaking, Ofarnyi Kwegya (Figure 1) and the Fishermen of Akosua Village (Figure 2) are two typical statues that has beautified the vernacular space of two historical settlements in the older southern half of Winneba.

   

  

  Figure 2: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Fishermen of Akosua Village, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. Akosua Village Community Centre, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  The two statues stand in the middle of Yeepimso and Akosua Village communities respectively as embodiments of vital ingredients helping in creating a sense of community, civic identity, and culture in both spaces. They have both transformed their unique sites as lively and attractive communities with the monumental figures not just becoming legible maps to the sites but turning the spaces into places that support human interactions. The site of the statue has become the most important and attractive places in the two communities. They have become the center of attraction where the community gather for entertainment and trade, especially at night when economic activities in the two communities are at their peak.

   

  

  Figure 3: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Unity Monument, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. The Unity Square, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  Another compelling monumental statue that has transformed the landscape of its site is the Unity Monument (Figure 3). Before the advent of the monument, the site of the statue (the Y-intersection – Winneba Traffic Light) was a deserted barricaded mere chaparral which displayed all forms of notices including obituaries and political posters (Mensah & Abraham, 2022). Yet, Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s statue has transformed the space into an ideologically charged space for a deliberative unity and peace agenda in Winneba. The environment is so aesthetically pleasing that people like to visit the site for selfies and sightseeing thereby generating income for the Municipal Assembly.

   

  

  Figure 4: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, The Aboakyer Monument, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. Osimpam Museum, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s ontological orientation of Winneba is multifaceted. Hence, he found significance in the century’s old festival of the people of Winneba, Aboakyer to sculpt a monumental statue to this honour (Figure 4). The Aboakyer Monument mounted on the roof-top of the Osim Pam Museum is at the heart of Winneba as an embodiment of Winneba’s heritage. Owing to the enormous narratives surrounding the Aboakyer Festival, it is seen as one of the most popular and most significant festivals in Ghana (Akyeampong, 2019). The people of Winneba are invariably identified by the Aboakyir Festival. Theophilus Kwesi Mensah captured the very essence of the festival by vividly depicting the most significant characters: the Supi, the Asafo warriors, and their cheer leaders in procession with the catch. 

   

  During the 2022 Aboakyer Festival, it was observed that both celebrants and tourist were awe-struck by the aesthetic connotations of the monument. People gathered around the site for various reasons. Whilst some were seen taking tourist photos, others were seen venerating the ancestors who in the past led the festival.

   

  In view of the Effutu Dream Project, Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s artistic ingenuity to a large extent has contributed to rebranding the Winneba Township by beautifying the place and making it attractive for tourist. However, beyond the beautification agenda, part of the underlining philosophy of the statues was to consciously bring to the fore, some compelling memories of Winneba in relation to the current narratives within the land.

   

  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah and the Collective Memories of Winneba

  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah capitalized on his creativity to translate some notable historical events pertaining to his beloved native, Winneba into tangible remnants of the recent past to shape and, indeed, consolidate the Effutu Dream Project.  Whilst usurping a storyteller, he equipped his statues to mimic the historiography of Winneba as collective memorials for the publics of Winneba. This is underpinned by his inclination to the truism that cities are built based on their histories and for that matter, Winneba cannot be gentrified without laying claims to the past publicly. Therefore, he ensured that whilst the Effutu Municipal Assembly initiated the Effutu Dream Project, the glorification of the public triumphs of Winneba was not taken for granted.  This desire culminated into transforming some important public vernacular spaces into storehouse of memories embedded and inscribed on the landscape of Winneba.

   

  

  Figure 5: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Ofarnyi Kwegya, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. Yeepimso Community Centre, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  

  Figure 6: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Fishermen of Akosua Village, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. Akosua Village, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

  Knowing Winneba traditionally as a fishing community, Theophilus Kwesi Mensah produced two major monuments, Ofarnyi Kwegya (Figure 5) and the Fishermen of Akosua Village (Figure 6) as a concretized instantiation to the noble trade that has in the past defined what place Winneba is.  Ofranyi Kwegya, is the statue of the unheralded giant master fisherman, an exponent of mid water trawling in Winneba who captured huge number of fish whereas the Fishermen of Akosua Village depict the famous trio: Zagada Afadzinu, Kwami Akpade and Sogbka Dagodzo who introduced artisanal fishing or subsistence fishing to Winneba.

   

  Although the fishermen portrayed in these monumental statues have died long ago, they constitute such significant heroes in the historiography of Winneba. In view of their important roles in the socio-economic phenomenology of Winneba, Theophilus Kwesi Mensah aimed at stopping their decay and position them into the realm of the timeless with the erection of their statues as memorials that transmit their archetypal narratives.

   

  

  Figure 7: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah, Unity Monument, 2021. Fibre Reinforced Polymer. The Unity Square, Winneba. Courtesy of Edem Dedi Photography.

   

  In view of Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s understanding of the political and dynastic heritage of Winneba, he engineered the construction of the Unity Monument in commemoration of the end of the protracted chieftaincy feud that had ensued in Winneba in the past. Ephraim-Donkor (2019) recount that since the latter part of the nineteenth century, the people of Winneba have clashed in violent struggle for power until 22^nd July, 2015 when the Supreme Court of Ghana, finally intervened. The feud was rooted in an uncanny clash of cultures within the same family three, resulting in a political quagmire as to which succession mode to follow, the male or female model. The people of Winneba traditionally follow the patrilineal line of succession, however the Acquahs who are for the female model, tasted power as caretakers but refused to cede power back to the original benefactors, the Otuano Royal Family (Gyatehs or Gharteys) who are for the male model.

   

  The female model became popular in Winneba because of their hospitality which allowed their Akan neighbours to live with them and rendered Winneba as a cosmopolitan community. Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’ depicted the two families, Gharteys and the Acquahs and a third figure representing the non-natives as a united force in the gentrification of Winneba as they erect a flag as signifier to this commitment. The Unity Monument does not only exhibit an aesthetically astute display of Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s artistic ingenuity but also, it encapsulates the political and dynastic history of Winneba whilst being a crucible of memory to the unity and peace in Winneba presently.

   

  As part of Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s memorialization agenda with regards to his statues in Effutu Dream, he produced the iconic Aboakyer Monument as a memorial to the Aboakyer Festival of the Effutus of Winneba. The Aboakyer, known throughout Ghana as the "Winneba Deer Hunting Festival," is held annually in early May. It commemorates the founding of Winneba some three centuries ago, when the Effutu, led by one Osim Pam and accompanied by the god Penkye Otu, settled on the coast at the end of their migratory journey from northern Ghana to the present location.

   

  Pedagogical Connotations of Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s Statues in Effutu Dream

  As artist academic, having been under the tutelage of the Emancipatory Art Teaching Project (EATP) by Professor kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, he is an alley of the blaxTARLINES community in Kumasi.  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s practice ties in with contemporaneity in the arts. In his teaching, he identifies with the philosophy that trainee art educators ought to think and act creatively. He does this by championing their epiphany in the studio as nexus of exploring emerging issues in art education. Through the studio, his statues in Effutu Dream creatively imparts on his students as agents of transformation in addressing the urgent call for equity, diversity, and inclusion in our educational structure and practices.

   

  Whilst his students have the liberty to choose their own masters, he has been readily available, and the doors of his studio was opened to all students who loved art whilst working on his statues in Effutu Dream. After all, he too has absorbed lessons from legendary Ghanaian Artist Academics such as Benjamin Menya, Kwamevi Zewuze Adzraku and Buckner Komla Dogbe. So, students with varied backgrounds are mainstays in his studio beyond the statues in Effutu Dream. He reckons the studio space as a crucible of intellect and a window to add to knowledge as his students pick his brain as apprentices there.

   

  

  Figure 8: Theophilus Kwesi Mensah working with his students (Courtesy the artist)
  

   

  Despite his inclination to EATP, he does not sway from being a traditionalist in the sense that he continues to enjoy working from the human figure. His preference to the human figure in his statues in Effutu Dream was informed by the truism that life changes and the language of sculpture evolves. So, it does not really matter if he is being repetitious with a subject that has preoccupied sculptors throughout history. Yet, as didactic symbols, he sought to make explicit what many sculptors make implicit in contemporary memorials in a classical sense with his figurative renditions.

   

  Whilst the public may tend to be passive receptors of his statues in Effutu Dream, his students cannot afford to be indifferent. There are obvious educational imperatives they naturally cannot ignore. As far as they look and see the statues, there are predisposed to learn from them by asking questions. Reis (2010) citing Silva (1984) concerning public art claimed that even if we do not pay any attention to it, daily contact influences our attitude towards the conservation of artworks and our intellectual and sensory appropriation of them. What more do students need to get motivated in their studies aside having the opportunity to see the works of their lecturer installed all over the community? As artist academic, Theophilus Kwesi Mensah thrives to integrate his vast knowledge in the art into the practice of cultivating artistic design talent. His contribution to knowledge is application oriented. His statues in Effutu Dream make meaningful contributions to practical solutions that are at the core of art education. His students garner the nuances of what he says in the classroom when they see his statues in town.

   

  Conclusion

  Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s ingenuity as a sculptor, draftsman and an academician are undeniable, so too is his energy and prolific creative output in the wider Effutu Dream Project. Within a trilogy of paradigms, he displays a profound representation of Winneba as a beautiful place to live and work. He does so by immortalizing four important collective memories of the town whilst using Fibre Reinforced Polymer, a material that stands the test of time and exudes a sense of eternalness. In the process, his students tapped into his creative sense both at his studio and on site.

   

  Whilst Theophilus Kwesi Mensah’s artistic praxis is eclectic, what I have sketched is a heuristic effort to describe his monumental contribution in the Effutu Dream Project in his beloved Winneba where he lives and practice as artist academic. The few details I have carved may at times be minor, but they add up to have a larger impact to his contributions in the effort to redesign and develop Winneba.

   

  References

  • Akyeampong, O. A. (2019). Aboakyer: traditional festival in decline. Ghana Social Science Journal, 16(1), 97.
  • Farman J (2015). Stories, spaces, and bodies: The production of embodied space through mobile media storytelling. Communication Research and Practice 1(2): 101–116.
  • Mensah, T. K. & Abraham, E. K. (2022, June). The unity monument: A hope of the end to the political quagmire in simpa. Paper Presented at The Creative Arts Conference, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
  • Reis, R. (2010). Public art as an educational resource. International Journal of Education through Art, 6(1), 85-96.

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  Zoe Schoofs

  The oriental carpet — in Europe it was once proof of the owner's long journeys or good trade relations, but in the regions of origin it was an everyday object used everywhere, often with a reference to paradise. With the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, the aesthetic concept changed — instead of lively gardens and elaborate arabesque patterns, suddenly there were tanks and weapons — so-called war rugs were created. Not only, but also for European viewers, whose idea of carpets is decisively influenced by classical Persian appearances, these new conventions of representation represent a break with the familiar. Soldiers, diplomats and war correspondents brought such pieces with them from their stays in Afghanistan and made them known in Europe and the USA. Enthusiasts and museum staff were quickly found to create collections of these objects, including the collectors Hans Werner Mohm, Till Passow and Enrico Mascelloni, as well as the Museum für Völkerkunde in Freiburg and Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich.

   

  Carpets from the Orient were already popular at European courts in the 13th century, as they referred to the good trade relations with the Near and Middle East and served as prestigious items of the interior. Carpets were imported, but were also knotted directly in European court manufactories. With the enthusiasm for the Orient that emerged in the middle of the 19th century, the perception of carpets, whose origin had been relatively irrelevant until then, changed to a meticulous, scientific analysis, especially with regard to origin and iconography. World exhibitions and museums made them accessible to an ever wider public. While up to then carpets from courtly and urban manufactories had been the object of desire, over time those with a nomadic context became the centre of interest (Jansen 2001: 138). While this interest had already subsided on the part of the ruling dynasties in the 17th century, carpets for decorative use were produced for the bourgeoisie in the course of the industrial revolution. In 1861 William Morris founded his company Morris & Co. in Great Britain. "Over time, the carpet became part of an aesthetic 'spatial concept'. The technique and decorative motifs were first adopted from the Orient, but then adapted to Western tastes.“ (Bristot 2011: 32) They embodied "[...] the romantic ideal of the free and combative nomad in boundless expanse [...] the Turkmen carpet could be regarded as a sign of this independence sought among men.“ (Jansen 2001: 64) Thus the carpets found their way into male smoking rooms and libraries, also as blankets, cushions and seat covers when cut into pieces. The relocation of the production to factories brought with it simplifications of  the motifs and thus further changes. The luxury good was now accessible to a broad section of the population and was thus the object of everyday use.

   

  Carpets from these contexts, unlike woven textiles, are often knotted. They can be found in many different cultures all over the world. Basically, a distinction is made between courtly and urban works and works of the rural and nomadic environment, although there are of course blurred lines. While in the case of courtly and urban carpets all work processes were carried out by the respective specialists (spinning, dyeing, designing, knotting, etc.), all work processes for the carpets from the rural-nomadic environment were in one hand. These objects were primarily produced for the company's own needs and in some cases for the small local market. Courtly and urban carpets, on the other hand, were mostly commissioned works, intended for export or as envoy gifts and made in manufactories. The respective environment had a decisive influence on the appearance of the knotting work. In contrast to rugs made in manufactories, those produced in private homes or a rural community where meant for the local market.

   

  The objects that today are commonly known as classical oriental carpets mostly originated from the Persian Empire and are therefore also known as Persian carpets. At this point, however, it should be noted that a large number of ethnic groups which were united under Persian rule knotted those carpets and that therefore there a large number of different aesthetic concepts. Those from northwestern Persia are most likely to correspond to the European idea of a particularly valuable carpet. The basis for this was an enduring period of peace under Shah Ismael in the 16th and 17th centuries, which is why sufficient resources were available to create works with particularly elaborate motifs (Bristot 2011: 56). In addition to purely ornamental patterns, numerous representations of gardens were created; vases, flowers and trees of life often referred to paradise.

   

  On one hand, various textiles are ubiquitous in many societies: in tents and yurts, carpets have been hung on walls and lain on the floor as thermal insulation since ancient times and hung at the entrance as a substitute for doors. On the other hand, carpets were made in a (semi-)nomadic context in memory of the deceased. These carpets were placed on walls and, in addition to their insulating function, also had the function of commemorating the ancestors. The prayer rug was of central importance for the performance of religious practices. Thus, textile products shape the visual perception of craftsmen and users, and on the other hand, everyday things also find their way into the art of knotting (Frembgen/Mohm 2000: 15).

   

  When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979, war became part of everyday life for many people there; in the course of the years, a civil war broke out. “As early as 1981, the war took on genocidal dimensions. Young and old, men, women and children were affected by unspeakable atrocities.“ (Knauer 1994: 27) "The cultural policy of the [Prorussian] Afghan government was aimed at destroying the traditional ties of Afghan culture to the Islamic world and at adopting the Soviet ideology.“ (Knauer 1994: 28)

   

  As a reaction to these developments, women began to process these impressions into carpet art. The aim was not only to report on specific events, but also to motivate resistance against these conditions and the political system. The resulting carpets originated from the nomadic rural environment. In contrast to large manufactories, in which the knotting and design process was usually carried out by different people, these experiences could be directly converted.

  In Figure 1, three horned hexagons arranged one above the other in a light background dominate the main field, which is lined by a wide, sixfold border. In the inner field of the rhombuses representations of three to four prayer rugs, several stylised mosques and a centrally placed ZSU-23-4 tanks were arranged. Although the tank immediately catches the eye, the carpet looks very calm, there are no other war instruments depicted. This impression is reinforced by the many geometric borders and the structure of the main field, whose symmetrical arrangement is reinforced by the triangles placed on the sides. The similarities to Mushwani carpets from the west and Baluchi carpets from the south are striking (cf. MacDonald 2017: 77 / 78; Parsons 2016: 166/167). The carpet measures 160 x 88 cm and was probably knotted in Pakistan in the 1980s. Since the carpets were mostly in use before they came to the bazaar and to Europe through traders, only estimates can be made in this respect. Since it didn't take long for international buyers to become interested while there was also a market in Afghanistan and Pakistan, such carpets were soon produced in Pakistani refugee camps to generate income.

   

  In Figure 2, a border of BTR-60 tanks frames the midfield, on which two identical representations are arranged one above the other: A hand underneath hammer and sickle is directly related to the map of Afghanistan. Below is the inscription جهاد (Dschihád). This motif of map, hand and writing can be found twice in the carpet. On the right side two AK-47 rifles were placed. On the left side there are two representations of trucks each with a ZPU-4 rifle (heavy multi-bore anti-aircraft machine gun) and also a Mi-24A combat helicopter with glazed bow. The field is filled with pseudo-cyrillic writing.

  In addition to the motifs shown here, there are many other illustrations that can be found on such carpets. Some point out the changes in day-to-day business by depicting weapons, others illustrate specific attacks on cities. But what was the purpose of those carpets whose motifs depict violent everyday scenes? In this respect, too, only speculations can be made. Scientists around the world hold different views on this question. What is certain however, is that the aesthetic change from classical ornamentation to specific depictions was also accompanied by a change in function.

   

  Surely the desire to process the experience played an important role. According to Jürgen Frembgen, it can be ruled out however, that carpets depicting objects of war have found their way into the family space. Instead, he assumes that the carpets were used in the men's house, hujra, or in the reception room of a house reserved for male visitors, otaq — rooms in which conversations and discussions took place. "The use of space and spatial presence are [...] the expression of social interaction and include shared experience. Spaces thus become zones of identity building.“ (Issa 2009: 83) In such a place they could also serve as a call for resistance. The aesthetics of Object 2 resemble anti-Soviet leaflets that circulated in large numbers, often showing the head of state Babrak Karmal, appointed by the Russians, represented as an (Afghan) puppet whose strings were pulled by the Russian hand. In Carpet 2, only the hand and the Soviet symbol were taken from this illustration. A carpet that makes war the subject of discussion could stimulate conversation and strengthen the idea of community. In addition, the homeowner positions himself on the side of the mujahideen. Pursuing the same purpose, they have been presented "in the houses and tents of some mujahidin commanders (sic!) and wealthy people — as ornaments and probably also out of pride about victories won.“ (Frembgen/Mohm 2000: 46) Accordingly, the objects would have been bought and used as "art within resistance" (Frembgen/Mohm 2000: 46). With the resignation and presumably also a further deteriorating economic situation, the objects later came back onto the market and were then purchased by international buyers.

   

  At first glance, it may seem surprising to be processing everyday life in a carpet. Since  particularly Persian pieces are often seen as an investment, timeless patterns or representations of traditional legends are more common. These representations of realities of life therefore mark an aesthetic idea of Modernism in which "the textile is already understood as a pictorial surface in the sense of narrative, sometimes even realistic iconography.“ (Baumhauer 2016: 156)

   

  Since their creation carpets with war motifs have served various purposes: to contribute to financial survival, to express political messages, to represent a medium of processing war. At a time when issues concerning refugee policy in Germany make up a large part of the political debate and there is disagreement about how to deal with migration of all kinds, the carpets have not lost any of their actuality. They are contemporary witnesses of the beginnings of a war that is hardly remembered today. Globalized relationships have made it possible for them to be known to experts around the world. Using various narrative concepts, the carpets with their „pictures against oblivion“ are meant to serve as a reminder of the conditions in the country for the following generation" (Frembgen/Mohm 2000: 45) – thus another purpose can be added, not only in Afghanistan, but all over the world. Although they were not explicitly created for this specific purpose, they could gain it through their display in museum spaces.

   

  References

  • Baumhauer, Till Ansgar: Kunst und Krieg in Langzeitkonflikten. Visuelle Kulturen im Dreißigjährigen Krieg und im heutigen Afghanistan, Berlin 2016.
  • Bristot, Monique Di Prima: Bildlexikon Teppiche, Berlin 2011.
  • Frembgen, Jürgen Wasim / Mohm, Hans Werner: Lebensbaum und Kalaschnikow: Krieg und Frieden im Spiegel afghanischer Bildteppiche, Blieskastel 2000.
  • Issa, Christine:  Baukultur als Symbol nationaler Identität: Das Beispiel Kabul, Afghanistan, Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Dr. rer.nat im Fachbereich Geographie, Gießen 2009, https://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2010/7483/pdf/IssaChristine_2009_12_08.pdf [15.12.2018], S. 83.
  • Jansen, Simone: Von der Jurte ins Herrenzimmer. Reisen von orientalischen und zentralasiatischen Teppichen, in: Dietrich, Andrea / Herbstreuth, Peter / Mannstein, David (Hrsg.): Orientale 1. Recherchen, Expeditionen, Handlungsreisen (Kat. Ausst. ACC Galerie, Weimar 2001), Weimar 2001, S. 58–71.
  • Knauer, Karin: Afghanistan. Krieg und Alltag (Kat. Ausst. Museum für Völkerkunde, Freiburg 1994), Waldkirch 1994.
  • MacDonald, Brian: Tribal Rugs. Treasures of the Black Tent, Woodbridge 2017.
  • Mascelloni Enrico: War Icons, in: Mascelloni, Enrico / Sawkins, Annemarie (Hrsg.): Afghan War Rugs. The Modern Art of Central Asia (Kat. Ausst. Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester 2016), https://mag.rochester.edu/exhibitions/afghan-war-rugs/ [19.11.2018], S. 15–20.
  • Parsons, Richard: The Carpets of Afghanistan, Woodbridge 2016.
  • Passow, Till / Wild, Thomas: Geknüpftes Gedächtnis. Krieg in afghanischer Teppichkunst (Kat. Ausst. WILD Teppich- und  Textilkunst, Berlin 2015), Berlin 2015.
  • Schlammiger, Karl / Wilson, Peter L.: Persische Bildteppiche. Geknüpfte Mythen, München 1980.

   

   

  published February 2020

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  Ming Zhang

  The importance of the series entitled by "Dream of Dunhuang"

   

  The Dunhuang Dreams series from the 1990s marked the emergence of a new opportunity for meticulous figure painting. After his in-depth study of the Dunhuang murals and his many field trips, Yongli Tang drew inspiration, adhered to the core of traditional painting and incorporated the expressive strengths of Western painting to achieve a bold innovation in artistic expression.

  In the creating of meticulous figure paintings, there are three crucial ingredients, including the use of line, modeling and coloring.

   

  Modeling and Line

   

   

  Fig. 2: Part of painting of hairpin ladies in the Tang Dynasty ,Zhou Fang, active late 8th–early 9th century, Ladies Wearing Flowers in Their Hair, handscroll, ink and color on silk, 46 x 180 cm, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang province, China - copyright: public domain / Wiki Commons.

  
  Fig.3: Part of Memories Of Childhood, Yongli Tang, 1998, Copyright: the artist.

   

  Line is the most basic language of Chinese painting, and Chinese painting is concerned with the use of frames and calligraphy and focused on the expression of the structure and rhythm of the object's form, instead of the shading and the in-depth of the object. The series of works is mainly presented by the use of line in the traditional painting while the shading and the linear perspective of the sketch is enlighteningly integrated in the form of relief.  The series Dream of Dunhuang innovatively uses linear sketches to portray and shape exaggerated figures, with extreme variations between lines. The spirit of the lines fits the mood created by the picture, while the light and dark faces are integrated to provide a detailed portrayal of the main figure. The juxtaposition of realistic and extracted Dunhuang symbols, modern and ancient figures, temporal and spatial wholeness, and a conceptual form of expression are harmoniously presented in the picture, and the modeling has both traditional cultural roots and modernity.

  Coloration

  Dunhuang murals have undergone thousands of years of natural and man-made changes in color, with some peeling and mutilating. It looks like a rich, deep, ancient palette that allows the viewer to achieve a secondary aesthetic pleasure. Being in the sacred, quiet rock cave, the soul is purified, and the individual remains in the flow of the years, achieving spiritual transcendence.

   

  In order to pursue the sense of history in Dunhuang murals, Yongli Tang used Black and White as the main colors and interspersed with azurite, stone green, earth red and other traditional colors for embellishment. The color of cooked brown was used to present the figures’ skin. The author could not be confined with the realistic object so that he exaggerated color changes to highlight the subjective emotional orientation of the picture.

  In the series of works, virtual dyeing method was innovatively applied to highlight the freehand of the picture.  Dyeing high places or low places could be switched freely according to needs, and dyeing is not limited by the line, which presents a vague sense of void.  In addition to the traditional color setting techniques, for example, flat painting, rendering and over-dyeing, the author developed the method of shedding. The thick painting and shedding methods set off each other. To be more precise, the author piled up degummed white powder on the base color, then chafed and patted, with some of the white powder falling off naturally. The rest was blended with the base color.  The use of large areas of white color does not cause the picture to be chalky. During the painting process the shedding of white color is like the painting of the freehand work. With the controlled brushwork, there are uncontrollable and accidental factors, which gives the mottled and dappled left on the murals by the years. The thickness, light and dark, cold and warm of the white color is presented in an exceptionally subtle way, creating a harmonious and quiet relationship between religious culture and modern beliefs.

  Material Texture

  Stable social and cultural environment made the painting language of meticulous painting was solely and smoothly developed for quite a long time. In the late 1980s, political, economic and cultural changes leaded to the activation of the painting community and the reflection on tradition. New painting materials were triggered a change in creative thinking.

   

  In his artistic practice, Tang Yongli discovered the texture beauty of the materials and used it in the painting process: mineral colors have a sense of luster, strong covering power, and can be repeatedly modified; the watercolor is rich and delicate; the shedding effect of degummed white powder reproduces the oxidation and wind erosion of mural; the layering of these colors gives the picture a sufficient sense of history and ethereal inspiration. Tang Yongli uses this as an opportunity for a new language, to expand and to strengthen it, as well as to form a new language paradigm. The beauty of the material texture becomes part of the creation and an aspect of the work to be tasted. The author chooses colored silk as the bearer, which is tough and can be used in a variety of techniques such as thick painting, shedding and reverse painting, and pigments such as ink, mineral color, lithopone powder and watercolor are used.

   

  Classical meticulous painting can only do addition, not subtraction. The use of these material techniques breaks the border of the painting on silk. It also allows us to add and subtract freely and to change a single direction to a multi-directional expression (i.e., highly realizing self-consciousness).  The expression of the free state of mind, workmanship, painting, color, texture and other factors become a new organism.

  Summary

  The series of Dunhuang Dream presents the interaction of multiple factors, scholarly artistic interrogation and the creation of diffuse imagery, as well as the attribution and transmission of spirit. It opens artistic horizons for the modern development of meticulous painting. The development of Chinese contemporary art has always been to move forward with the review and inheriting of history. They find visual art resources to reinterpret, redevelop and re-create them with a contemporary view, thinking and aesthetics, which will form a dynamic and growing tradition.

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  Natalie Göltenboth

   

  When I first entered Anna’s house¹, I was surprised to hear that it was a temple of the Afro-Cuban Santería religion, a place determined by the presence of the orichas – the sacred beings of Santería.  The objects of the interior did not reveal but seemed to hide their sacred meaning for the uninitiated viewer.    

   

  On our way through the house, Anna introduced me to a doll dressed up in white: Obatalá, the paternal oricha of wisdom and justice, with a cream cake on his right and a wide-eyed Bambi on his left. On the sideboard in the corner we greeted Yemayá, the maternal oricha of the sea, represented by a plastic bowl filled with water in which various floating animals swung and a Barbie, whose light blue lace dress complemented the turquoise colored water of the bowl. Finally, in a small wardrobe, the soup tureen of the goddess Ochún was decorated with two elegant Barbies in golden outfits, staring out of the darkness with their always flawless smiles. Two foreigners, charged with western ideals of beauty, who, in this context, had been commissioned with representing Ochún, the oricha of femininity, love and freshwater.

   

  The representation or illustration of sacred powers through everyday objects, such as toys, dolls and knickknacks, have held a strong fascination for me since I literally stumbled upon them in Santero households, and, thus, the question of how this transference of powers and meanings to ultimately mundane objects could occur has long accompanied me on my fieldwork.

  How can we interpret the fact that Ochún, the Afro-Cuban goddess of love and freshwater is visualized by a glittering Barbie doll sent to Cuba by Cuban family members living in the USA.

  We should take a look back to the beginnings of the history of this religion for a better understanding of these dolls on the altars of Afro-Cuban Santería. Between the 16th and the 19th century, people were moved from one world to another on the sea routes of the transatlantic slave trade, which connected West Africa with the Caribbean (and this, in turn, with Europe), where they would henceforth work as slaves on the plantations of white landowners.

   

  We should consider that people from Nigeria, Togo and Benin who had been deported to Cuba arrived in the New World without any luggage. The carved wooden sculptures of their gods, power objects, masks or costumes were left behind together with the African coastline. The transfer of religious concepts from Africa to Cuba, the Caribbean or Brazil, therefore, took place primarily in the minds of these people and remained dependent on this imaginative reservoir for long periods of time.

   

  Despite the fact that the Cuban social anthropologist Don Fernando Ortiz² still managed to collect some old carved wood oricha representations which had been produced during the colonial period in the 1930s to 1950s, the tradition of carving sculptures had not been resumed in the new situation in Cuba. The wooden oricha representations of Nigeria and Benin were replaced by smooth porcelain Madonna statues and the serious looking saints of Spanish folk Catholicism. Slaves from West Africa who were forced to worship the statue of Santa Barbara reacted with a phenomenon known as the syncretism of the Caribbean: statues of the Madonna and saints were interpreted as “reservoirs” of African deities and treated as such.   

   

  In the course of these syntheses, Santa Barbara is venerated as a representation of the virile oricha Changó, ruler of fire, thunderstorms and lightning. The Virgin of Regla, with her blue and white Madonna robe, is associated with Yemayá, the maternal oricha of the sea, and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, in her church near Santiago de Cuba, is worshipped as Ochún, the oricha of love, creativity and sexuality. This possibility of reinterpretation, of “declaring something to be something else,” is tantamount to breaking the link between form and content and is the precondition for the unusual appearance of Barbies on the Santería altars.   

   

  As the colonial supplies in holy figurines diminished, colorful multiples of saints from Cuban mass production are found nowadays instead of the statues. Together with plastic dolls, Barbies or everyday objects, these new assemblages bear witness to the change of time and values, of new desires and new myths that move the people of Cuba today and are visualized on the altars.      

  Despite the fact that the connection of object and meaning has been blown up in modern Santería arrangements, it remains unclear to what extent new narratives are woven into the conception of the orichas when they are represented by new material objects: how much Madonna can one find in Yemayá, the oricha of the sea, and what is the relationship between a Barbie and an oricha? Referring to Marshall McLuhan’s³ famous statement that the medium is a significant part of the message, we can try a more specific interpretation of Barbies on Santería altars.

   

  Original Barbie dolls are commodities acquired in stores in the USA and sent as gifts by relatives. As commodities and gifts, they mirror family ties that have continued over decades connecting Cuba and the USA, countries that have been politically separated since the Cuban revolution in 1959. In addition, Barbie dolls are not only saturated with the sacred aura of the orichas, they are also simultaneously encrusted with a fine texture of Cuban dreams of consumption and the feverish delirium of departure. Like Catholic saints, Barbies are figurines which are highly charged with their own narrative: the story of Ken and Barbie in the US American glamour world is a story of success, power and consumption. In this sense, Barbies on Afro-Cuban altars represent the fusion of idealized body and lifestyle imaginaries with sacred Afro-Cuban entities and deified ancestors. And, in the end, the forces of the orichas are conjured for reaching exactly these reasons: to provide their adepts with power that enables them to achieve their goals and realize their dreams – be they capitalistic or of another sort.

   

  The reclassification of the Barbie doll from toy to altar object does not happen suddenly. The dolls have to undergo a transition process to become part of an altar installation. The dolls that appear on altars have been subjected to a ritual cleansing ceremony using decoctions of herbs associated with a particular oricha, which allows them to bear the vital power “Aché” of the sacred being. A bundle of herbs and other substances have been placed inside their bodies. Throughout these preparations, nothing has changed the appearance of the doll, which preserves its fashionable style and smile. What has changed is the idea about the object and hence its place – the Barbie is now part of a sacred altar installation.

   

  Barbie dolls watch the strollers from the illuminated doorways that line the dark streets of Havana. Powerful representations of forces, imaginations, places and practices, connecting Africa and Cuba as well as Cuba and the USA, blending  boundaries between dolls and gods, toys and power objects, commodities and sacred beings. They connect long-separated families and fragmented religious concepts. They guard the entrances of homes and watch over the desires of their inhabitants, who rely on the power of their Barbie goddesses.

   

   

  Footnotes

   

  1) Natalie Göltenboth. “Yemayá und der Spielzeugdampfer – Zur Sakralität der Ready-mades auf afrokubanischen Altären.” In Ideen über Afroamerikaner – Afroamerikaner und ihre Ideen. Beiträge der Regionalgruppe Afroamerika auf der Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde in Göttingen 2001, edited by Lioba Rossbach de Olmos & Bettina Schmidt. Marburg: Curupira, 2003, pp. 107-127.

  2) Fernando Ortiz. Hampa Afrocubana: Los Negros Brujos. Miami. Universal, 1973.

  3) Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Men. 1^st Ed. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 1964

   

   

  References

   

  • Brown, David H. “Thrones of the Orichas. Afro-Cuban Altars in New Jersey, New York and Havana”, African Arts, Oct. (1993) 44-87.
  • Danto, Arthur C. Transfiguration of the Commonplace. A Philosophy of Art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981.
  • Göltenboth, Natalie.2020. „Invoking the gods – or the apotheosis oft he Barbie doll“ IN: Philipp Schorch, Martin Saxer et al. Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond. London: UCL
  • Göltenboth, Natalie. “Yemayá und der Spielzeugdampfer – Zur Sakralität der Ready-mades auf afrokubanischen Altären.” IN: Ideen über Afroamerikaner – Afroamerikaner und ihre Ideen. Beiträge der Regionalgruppe Afroamerika auf der Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde in Göttingen 2001, edited by Lioba Rossbach de Olmos and Bettina Schmidt. Marburg: Curupira, 2003, pp. 107-127.
  • Holbraad, Martin, and Morten Axel Pedersen. “Things as Concepts.” In The Ontological Turn. An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017, pp. 199-238.
  • Willie Ramos, Miguel. “Afro-Cuban Orisha Worship.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin Art, edited by Arthuro Lindsay. Washington: Smithsonian Press, 1996, pp. 51-76.

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  Runette Kruger

  Cape Town based Tokolos Stencil Collective uses stencil and graffiti to address socio-political issues such as lingering racial inequality, labour exploitation, segregation, and poverty. The name of the collective refers to a dwarflike mythical being, the tokoloshe, that materialises at night to frighten unsuspecting victims, now mobilised by the Collective to “terrorise the powers that be”, or, the status quo of inequality (Tokolos-Stencils, 2015). The declared aim of the Collective is to highlight continuing spatial and social segregation in a post-apartheid South Africa (Botha, 2014).  

   

  The social discrepancies whereby the majority of South Africans continue to experience social and economic isolation are addressed by Adato, Carter and May (2006), who cite the Poverty and Inequality report of 2000. In the report, South Africa is described in terms of two parallel worlds, “one, populated by black South Africans where the Human Development Index (HDI) was the equivalent to [that of] Zimbabwe or Swaziland. The other … [populated by] white South Africa in which the HDI [was] between that of Israel and Italy” (Adato, Carter and May, 2006, p. 226). This inequality had, disturbingly, only deepened between 2000 and 2006, and in a March 2018 report by the World Bank, South Africa is cited as the most unequal country globally in 2015, based on the Gini coefficient of 0.63 of that year (World Bank, 2018, p42). The Gini coefficient measures the gap in income between the wealthiest and poorest members of a population. A score of 0 would indicate absolute income equality, and a score of 1 would indicate that one person owned all the wealth. This disparity, as well as the resultant exploitability of the poor, informs the Tokolos Stencil Collective’s main subject matter.  

   

  The most widely recognizable image associated with the Collective is the Remember Marikana stencil, which combines these words with an image of Mgcineni Noki, known as Mambush to his friends and family, or, within the context of the Marikana massacre, The man in the green blanket. The Marikana event played a formative role in the establishment of the Collective – it was founded in 2013 on the day of the first anniversary of the event (Anaya, 2014). The massacre is widely regarded as a watershed crisis, comparable with the Sharpeville tragedy of 21 March 1960, now commemorated as Human Rights Day.

   

  Noki was a community leader who became a prominent news figure in the days before the Marikana massacre, identifiable by the bright green blanket tied around his shoulders. The Marikana massacre took place on 16 August 2012 when striking miners working at the London-based Lonmin Platinum Mine in the North-West Province were gunned down by police wielding automatic rifles, violently ending a six day build-up of tension. Noki grew up in Thwalikhulu, a small village in the Eastern Cape, and was aged 30 at the time of his death. He had a wife and two year old daughter who lived in Carletonville, about 100km away. He is reported to have attempted to de-escalate the growing violent skirmishes, and to focus the gathered strikers on their aim – to increase their wages. The evening before the massacre, the miners were led to believe that if they returned to work, wage negotiations would begin. In the hours before the final events, while the miners’ repeated requests for negotiations were ignored, they were finally beseeched by their union to withdraw. Weighing up the growing indications of a final crack down, Noki began to lead a group of miners away from the outcrop of rock that had been the main scene of conflict over the course of the week. As they reached the nearby settlement their path was blocked by police and barbed wire. Noki led the men another route, only to be blocked again. The ensuing gunfire on the group led to the death of 17 men, Noki among them, identifiable by his green blanket as he lay on the ground. A second group of men were also attempting to leave the site, and were fired at with 295 bullets, resulting in 17 more casualties. The strike continued for another five weeks before the mining company agreed to negotiate. Pay was increased by 7% (Davies, 2015).

   

  I specifically chose this image of Noki, his arm raised while exhorting and encouraging his fellow workers, instead of the dehumanising imagery of up-close, lifeless mineworkers that was freely shared by the press. In contrast, this image in the Remember Marikana stencil shows him as a leader with courage and purpose, and has become an iconic symbol of the struggle for dignity and an adequate wage among the most exploited workers in South Africa, on whose labour an economy that they are unable to access, has been built. Commenting on the lot of the under-classes in 1940, during the impending humanitarian crisis of the Second World War, Walter Benjamin (1969, p. 255 original emphasis) reminds us that “every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably ... To articulate the past historically ... means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger [failing which] even the dead will not be safe”. The Remember Marikana image reminds us that it is crucial to prevent the sacrifices of the most vulnerable members of society from slipping into the amnesia of oblivion.

   

   

   

  References

  • Adato, M., Carter, M.R., & May, J. (2006). Exploring poverty traps and social exclusion in South Africa using qualitative and quantitative data. The Journal of Development Studies, 42(2), 226-247.
  • Anaya, V. (2014, September 10). Tokolos Collective: “Cape Town is a very oppressive place for the poor”. Wiriko Artes Y Culturas Africanas. Retrieved from https://www.wiriko.org/tag/marikana/
  • Benjamin, W. (1969). Illuminations. Edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken.
  • Botha, N. (2014, November 21). Tokolos Stencil Collective: 'Crap' art designed to unsettle. The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved from https://mg.co.za/article/2014-11-21-tokolos-stencil-collective-crap-art-designed-to-unsettle.
  • Davies, N. (2015, May 22). The savage truth behind the Marikana massacre. The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved from https://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-21-the-savage-truth-behind-the-marikana-massacre.
  • Tokolos-Stencils. (2015). Retrieved from http://tokolosstencils.tumblr.com/. 
  • World Bank. (2018). Overcoming poverty and inequality in South Africa: An assessment of drivers, constraints and opportunities. Washington DC, USA.

   

   

  published March 2020

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  Emmanuel Aklasu

  Owusu-Ankomah’s painting at first glance reveals a foreshortening company of energetic warriors, muscular framed with broad shoulders, muscled chest, and a narrow waist in a chiselled physique. The hunters were portrayed with huge hands, clenched fist, knuckles, strong legs visibly revealing biceps brachiis and dabs of varicose veins on the arms, thighs and legs evident of powerful and efficacious men. Before modern society, the average male spent most of their time hunting, protecting, and engaging in physical activities that increased their muscle mass and maximize their muscular proportions. Owusu-Ankomah’s production exhibits masculine competitiveness and a sense of adventure – the brave team were a-fire with passion, armed with sticks in a leopard-like graceful movement as the captain leads carrying a captured antelope shoulder high.

   

  The warriors are noticeably naked with only a string of grass costume wrapped around the private parts which is the formal and ceremonial attire for the ancient culture. Owusu-Ankomah’s choice of colour in rendering the human figures lends credence to the fact that colours have a strong position in identifying humans while hunting. Wearing hunter orange is the best way to ensure other hunters see you and don’t accidentally mistake you for game in complex backgrounds that are often green or brown. The artwork reveals harmonizing brown colours which tend to create a central focal point in the entire picture frame to evoke earthiness, emotions, security and safety related to the natural world. The tints and shades of hues enhanced the main features in the painting to vividly communicate the intended message as well as create an illusion of depth.

   

  A thick flora forms the background of the painting evident that the hunting expedition was carried out in a thick forest. As the fearless, able-bodied men advance through shrubs in high spirit of mission accomplished, an earthly scent swirled around them coupled with a sense of eagerness to meet a welcoming, expectant and jubilant community. Hunting is an extremely important mode of human-nature interaction closely linked to culture patterns and value systems. This engagement with wild animals is thought of as part of a deeper unity with nature, which means being part of nature in physical sense (Lowassa et al., 2012). Sustainable hunting prescribes taking as much as needed and as much as the habitat and the population can regenerate. Suffice to say, when hunting for a game form the basis of a year-long survival of a people, it calls for a deeper reflection. Owusu-Ankomah’s painting comes on the back of an ancient heritage of a distinct tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa.

   

  ‘Aboakyir’ translated ‘deer hunt’ is a festival uniquely celebrated by the Effutu (Simpa) people of Winneba in the Central Region, southern coast of Ghana, West Africa. The festival which is celebrated annually on the first Saturday in May has the historical antecedent of the replacement of a human sacrifice to a tribal god with a leopard – an alternative which resulted in the loss of many more lives than the sacrifice of a single slave. Consultations with the deity for a more humane alternative resulted in the “Wansan” (the deer) as a practicable and most acceptable substitute. The capture of a live deer, like the leopard, required many more hands than the members of the royal family could find. The additional hands required were solicited from the local militia as a service to ‘the stool – a symbol of chieftaincy, royalty, custom and tradition’. It was this change in form; that is, the involvement of the local militia, that the annual consecration and appeasement of the deity became a public, state-wide affair. This marked the birth and hence the origin of the “Aboakyer” festival.

   

  The design of the Effutu State emblem tells this story; the ‘stool’ on which the King is installed sits on the “Wansan” (the deer).

   

  

  Emblem of the Effutu state (Source: Palace of Oma Odefe)

   

  The festival is therefore important for the ‘stool’, its occupant and the entire royal stool family. It is a religious duty and an obligation for the general citizenry to ensure its celebration annually is sustained to honour the ancestors and protect their historic culture for posterity on the back of removing evil and predicting a good harvest for a prosperous life in the coming year. The week-long activity begins with two traditional warrior groups known as the ‘Asafo’ companies consult their shrines for clearance, protection and early catch. The warrior groups clad in distinct costumes with distinct musical instruments — the ‘Tuafo' and ‘Dentsefo’, move to their respective hunting grounds at dawn on Saturday, wielding sticks and clubs amid chanting of war songs. No weapons, other than clubs and sticks are used to catch the deer, as it must be brought back alive.

   

  By far, the relevance of Owusu-Ankomah’s painting is not in doubt as it fosters a deeper understanding of the historical and societal roles of hunting within Ghanaian communities. The painting holds both cultural and educational significance which sparks discussions on conservation, sustainable practices, and the preservation of cultural heritage. Consequently, bridging the gap between present generations and the rich tapestry of cultural and environmental history. The sight of the painting in Ghana’s National Museum serves as a poignant reflection of the nation’s cultural heritage and connection to nature. In this visual narrative, the core of historical period of a distinct society is unearthed.

   

  References

  • Lowassa, A., Tadie, D. & Fischer, A. (2012). On the role of women in bushmeat hunting – Insights from Tanzania and Ethiopia. Journal of Rural Studies 28(4):622–630.

   

  Further Reading

  • Anane-Frimpong, D. (2022). Aboakyir: Deer hunt festival. Link Retrieved on April 10, 2023
  • Rubiano, W. (2017). Planting trees for the aboakyer festival 2017.  Link

   

  Published March 2024

  

  Barbara Lutz-Sterzenbach

  An energetic scene. Five men in a flat landscape approach the viewer. Their bodies are naked - except for their loincloths - their faces grim. Muscles in the bright light stand out under the skin, their chests bulge voluminously - they are timeless heroes. The men do not look at the viewer of the picture. With their long, dark sticks firmly in their strong hands, they gather symmetrically around the bald man in the foreground. He presents himself with an antelope in his raised arms. His bald skull points to the left, as does the antelope's head.

   

  On closer inspection, some things are irritating. Are the men dancing or walking? Where is the animal spatially located? Somehow it is on the shoulder of the man, but the legs are captured by the men behind, who would be much too far away for that. Is an event, an episode (as in a photograph) depicted? Or does the symmetry of the composition speak more of a constructed symbol, a sign, as in an emblem? The latter would support the strict division into horizontal planes: with the islands of grass in the foreground, the flat, ochre-coloured plane in the middle ground and the forest with sky in the background. But then again many design principles undermine this order: the tense, energetic movements of the figures, the strong brushstrokes, the irregular shapes of the white clouds and the tufts of grass, the dynamic accents of the sticks.

   

  We know from our Ghanaian colleagues that what is depicted here, the catching of the animal, is part of a ritual celebration and a festival (the Aboakyer Festival). Here the moment is shown when the men have stepped out of the dark, hermetically sealed forest in the background with their prey and now present themselves in the bright light with their success. A comparison with the results of an image search on the internet for “Aboakyer festival” (Fig. 2) shows that this is the iconic moment. Here the idea of the festival seems to be condensed. And this also explains the emphasis on muscles: the hunters must be well trained to match the animal's speed and strength.

   

  

  Fig. 2 (Google search for "Aboakyer Festival" on 9.9.2023 - the first page of results) Screenshot: Ernst Wagner

   

  Owuso-Ankomah's painting focuses on the men with the animal. At first glance, the painting shows above all the strength of the men. The space thus becomes the backdrop for their performance. Their bodies are not only idealised but theatrically exaggerated, their muscles as if illuminated by a spotlight. The geometric centre of the picture, through which the horizon also passes, brings the loincloth of the leader into focus (see fig. 3) - perhaps an allusion to male potency?

   

  

  Fig. 3: Composition sketch (horizon and geometric centre) Photo: Ernst Wagner

   

  A comparison with photos on the same theme from the Heritage Centre in Winneba (see Fig. 4-6) shows clear differences to the depiction in Owusu-Ankomah's painting. In the artwork, both animal and hunter have their mouths open, exhaustion is evident in both. In this way, too, man, animal and landscape are connected - despite hunting and death. The artist uses the warm ochre tones in such a way that the earth, the human body and the animal hardly differ in colour. Since the animal is still alive, its head does not have to be held. Thus, visually, it seems to elude a depiction of "being trapped", also due to the ambiguous spatiality described above. It could almost just as easily be understood as a triumphant appearance of the animal, to which the men are subordinate as bearers and assistant figures - comparable, for example, to Jan van Eyck's depiction of the lamb (see fig. 7), which also marks a mediating position between victim and victor, between human beings and God.

   

  

  Fig. 4-6: Photos from the Heritage Centre Winneba Photos: Ernst Wagner

   

  

  Fig. 7: Van Eyck, Lamb of God, Image Detail: Ghent Altar. Oil on wood, 350 x 461 cm
  Cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent

   https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109213 [28.10.2024]

   

  This image sets against each other contradictory concepts: static-symmetrical-ordered vs. dynamic; accidental situation vs. deliberate staging; documentation vs. sign; hyperrealism in body and space vs. symbolic charge. It sets these contradictions against each other in the unity of the painting.

   

  Reference

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W7IkJvL32E

   

  Published March 2024

   

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  Paul-Henri Souvenir ASSAKO ASSAKO

  The image is a photograph showing details of the French artist Christian Lapie’s public installations in 2001 in the city of Ngaoundéré, capital of the Adamawa Region in Cameroon. The work consists of five modules composed of nine figures, ranging between 150 and 450cm each and laid in a semi-circular radius of 1000 cm. The pieces are made of wood and placed vertically in an upright position. The upper end is shaped like a head, giving each piece the appearance of a human silhouette. Arranged like a gathering of people dressed in local traditional attire, called boubou (a long, loose-fitting garment worn by both sexes in parts of Africa), the works are aligned in a semi-circular arc.

   

  The work’s detailed structure is closely linked to its title Djaoulérou, which means "traditional space, place of meeting and reception". The artist echoes customs in a context where the relationship between traditional practices and Islam remains ambiguous. Islam provides an opportunity for certain members of local society to acquire privileged positions under the auspices of religion. Religion’s role in the political game has proven to be so important that post-colonial politicians have laboured to maintain control of the religious sphere in every region. Religion presents challenges for politicians in terms of governance and control. Maud Lasseur (2005, 95), echoing this sentiment, maintains that: “During the colonial period and under the regime of President Ahidjo (1960–1982), Christian missions were thus contained to the south of Cameroon so as not to hinder the Muslim aristocracy of the Far North or thwart the unifying political project of the first Cameroonian president”. 

   

  The monumental character of the work, the rhythm and movement suggested by forms treated with little attention to detail, the variations in volume and the different dimensions of each silhouette make the installation look both impressive and expressive. Each individual group of statues, displayed at the same time in different places in the city, shows how the "mysterious objects" made by a foreign artist present unfamiliar traits regarding the city’s socio-cultural imagination. The work breaks taboos: an unusual appearance that creates artistic experience, tradition and beliefs, which have become subject to manipulation and political propaganda within the society.

   

  The work’s destruction reflects the fragility of a slavish society instrumentalized by politically motivated religious arguments in the 2002 legislative elections in Cameroon. The fact that a French artist has carried out an unusual and iconoclastic installation project in this city is seen as a provocation, particularly by the Muslim cultural authority. This religious and political authority occupies a very influential social position as "guardian of the temple" (custodian of traditions) and is in a position to incite people to commit acts of such magnitude.  In addition to setting fire to the works and proceeding to uninstall them, public authorities definitively closed down the Franco-Cameroonian alliance of Ngaoundéré because of the social unrest the works provoked. This cultural centre for Franco-Cameroonian cooperation had supported the artist's installation project.

   

  The act of vandalism perpetrated on Christian Lapie’s work exposes Cameroon’s national society in search of landmarks. Art, and particularly sculpture, has played an important role in expressing belief systems. The cosmogonic universe and the world view of the populations that have succeeded one another in this territory have been revealed through artistic representation. The bold production and reproduction of anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, geometric and imaginary forms is typical of these societies. As in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, art has helped what people see, think, imagine and believe (J.P. Notué, 2005). Because of the lack of critical understanding of their history and the changes they experienced, societies are confronted with major shocks that have an impact on their development. Among these shocks are an ambiguous relationship to religion. Its consequences are the religious and political manipulation that societies are sometimes subjected to. One historical reason for this is the attitude of missionaries who made no discernment in the positive values of the tradition and the absence of doctrine and deep convictions of these values (E. Mveng, 1985). 

   

  Cameroon’s colonial religious legacy is one of the most important sources of the ethical foundation of its society in the 21st century. The generalization of the religious profession of faith/conversion seems to have fostered a latent form of "alienation" among the urban society. There is a superficial knowledge of both the principles of modern culture and the traditional environment, two references whose slavish play of opposites have political stakes. In Cameroon, the policy of conviviality between Islam, other religions and local cultural practices implemented by Sultan Njoya in the Kingdom of Bamum presents elements of inspiration for a compelling form of social emancipation. The policy of inculturation and multi-confessionalism has favoured the cultural openness of society and preserved, for example, the sustainability of the region’s remarkable creative industry. Art, belief systems and politics are all values of cultural expression fundamental to society.

   

  The work breaks taboos: the artistic experience created by its unusual appearance calls upon traditions and beliefs that have become subject to manipulation and political propaganda within the society.

   

   

   

  References

  • Mveng Engelbert. 1985, Histoire du Cameroun, tom 2, Yaoundé, Ed. CEPER.
  • NOTUE Jean-Paul, TRIACA Bianca, 2005, Bandjoun, Trésors royaux du Cameroun, Milan, Ed. 5 continents.
  • Maud Lasseur. 2005, in «  www.cairn.info/revue-afrique-contemporaine-2005 ».
  • Assako Assako PH.S. 2011, l’art au cameroun du XXe au début du XXIe siècle : étude des expressions sculpturales en milieu urbain, thèse de Doctorat/Ph.D. en histoire de l’art, Université de Yaoundé 1.
  • www.christianlapie.net/oeuvres/16/djaoulerou
  • www.christianlapie.net/mobile/news/326/.%20http:#news
  • www.christianlapie.net

   

   

  published February 2020

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  Constanze Kirchner

  The motif Paradiesgärtlein originates from Christian imagery. It was painted many times in the 15th century, especially in Italy and along the Rhine. The enchanting devotional picture shows Our Lady enthroned on a bright red cushion in the middle of the garden, tall, in a radiant blue robe, as the figure dominating the picture. Her head is bowed and she is reading a book. A crown with leaves distinguishes her as the Queen of Heaven.

   

  

   

  The Christ Child is playing at her feet. The other female figures in the left half of the picture are also to be understood as Holy Virgins because of their splendid clothing. A clear assignment of these saints is uncertain (Keazor 2001, p. 231 ff.). St. Barbara is probably drawing water with a golden spoon from the (life) well in the foreground on the left, because legend attributes to her miraculous powers in overcoming a period of drought. And it could be St. Dorothea who picks cherries from the (life) tree and puts them into the basket, although – according to the legend – the cherries are handed to her (ibid.). The figure holding the plucked instrument (psaltery) to the infant Jesus is interpreted as St Catherine of Alexandria or St Agnes. She is distinguished by a golden diadem with floral decoration and by her flowing hair (ibid.).

   

  

   

  The group of figures on the right consists of the pensive Archangel Michael, also crowned with a golden plant, and – facing him – St. George in chain mail, next to whom lies a small dead dragon. A third figure, probably St. Oswald, bends down to both of them, as a raven peeps out from behind his knee (ibid., p. 233). He is holding on to the tree of knowledge. Saint George has of course already conquered the dragon, which stands for evil, and looks expectantly at Mary. Under another tree sits a frightened monkey with the distinct features of the devil.

   

  

   

  According to biblical legend, he is held in check by the Archangel Michael, the fighter against evil and guardian of paradise. The apples mentioned in the creation story, which tempted to sin, lie ready on the hexagonal, bright white stone table. Wine and bread refer to the Last Supper. The table is compositionally remarkable, dividing the male group of figures from Mary.

   

  Both paradise and the garden stand for a protected, enclosed and bounded place that provides food and water as well as peace and quiet. In the garden, flowers, herbs, fruits and grasses blossom and grow, spanning a supra-temporal, idealising arc from spring (lily of the valley) to midsummer (roses). Especially the white-flowered plants, such as the lilies, stand for the purity of Mary. Just like the plants, twelve birds of different species are depicted in detail and realistically - and thus identifiable (Brinkmann/ Kemperdick 2002, p. 93).

   

  Compositionally, the colour scheme dominates the picture: the secular blue sky frames the graceful Mary leaning towards the book, whose blue robe corresponds with the blue clothing of St Barbara and that of the archangel. The white garments of the saintly figures, the wall in white tones and the light-coloured table enclose the baby Jesus, also dressed in white, in their midst. At the same time, the bright red of the virgins' robes, the red of Mary's book, her seat cushion, St. George's sleeves, the blossoms and fruits reinforce the clear composition, which is additionally underlined by the complementary green of the plants and once again places Mary at the centre of the picture's action. The spatial effect is essentially determined by groupings and overlaps of the figures and pictorial objects; there are no shadows in the heavenly world.

   

  The figures appear relaxed, peaceful and serene, the colourfulness and the abundance of vegetation with springing water embody serenity and earthly happiness. The Holy Virgins are engaged in an occupation that does not cause any trouble. The clothing and hair ornaments are reminiscent of courtly life in a well-tended castle garden. This is also indicated by the killed animals, which are not usually part of the heavenly world, as well as a tree of knowledge that does not bear fruit. This combination of the divine world as a heavenly paradise with the impression of earthly reality characterises the picture to a great extent and thus lends it a peculiar mood, explosiveness and tension in its contemplativeness.

   

  

   

  There are numerous studies on the painting technique, the use of colour, the symbolism, the identification, function and activities of the saints, the plants and animals. Also research has been done on provenance in the monastic context or on the attribution of the picture type as ‘hortus conclusus’ (closed garden as a symbol of Mary's virginity). ‘Hortus conclusus’ is often alluded to in paintings of Mary - a garden with an enclosure and with certain plants that refer to Mary (lily, rose, but also lily of the valley or strawberries) - as can also be seen in the Paradiesgärtlein. At the same time, however, the Paradiesgärtlein evokes associations with the gardens of pleasure and love, as found, for example, in engravings by the Master of the Gardens of Love in the mid-15th century (http://bildersammlung-prehn.de/de/node/946, 06.03.2019) - and in this ambivalence once again clearly emphasises the link between divine and earthly worlds of life.

   

  What does the Paradiesgärtlein mean?

  The Paradiesgärtlein defies a clear interpretation. The duality of good and bad is hinted at, but the victory of good in paradise over evil or sin – represented by the dead dragon and the vanquished devil – is clearly emphasised. However, the ideal state in paradise is not unbroken: With their tilted heads, the figures in the painting appear pensive, as if they know that there is a life of tormenting reality outside their shelter. The garden as a retreat from the dangerous outside world protects, where in everyday life there is oppression, fear of hunger or sudden death. With the devotional image, religion offers comfort in the promise of salvation to a paradisiacal existence in which the threatening is banished. The imponderable reality is countered by the protective enclosure of the massive wall – outside, the world is full of danger.

   

  The devotional image builds a bridge from this world to the hereafter and vice versa. It opens up a view into eternity and thus into a transcendental space of experience that lies outside finite everyday experience. Visual means are used to create access to the divine, an access that at the same time recalls one's own experience of the world and yet enables the imaginative experience of transcendence.

  As an anthropological constant, the idea of a transcendent reality, which usually characterises life after death, runs through many cultures. Experiences of transcendence are described in many ways and often refer to extrasensory perceptions and supernatural forces to which the respective belief is tied.

   

  Why is the painting interesting for art education?

  Transcendence and spirituality are often at the core of cultural traditions - in this case Christian heritage. It could be exciting to enter into a conversation about this and to draw on examples of non-European cultural testimonies of faith from the 15th century. In this way, world history can be opened up and a Eurocentric perspective on the history of Western art can be expanded. (As the epitome of European beliefs about the Garden of Eden, the work also stands at the end of the medieval conception of nature and art.)

   

  The image announces divine truth: In paradise, the world is in order. Outside the garden, man lives in untamed nature and is exposed to all incalculable events. With its religious context of origin, the painting's function is primarily to depict an otherworldly, divine order that illustrates the promise of salvation after death in contrast to the earthly hardships of the late Middle Ages. But the pictorial interweaving of earthly and heavenly life already points beyond the late medieval conception of the image. The shielded divine world view experiences ruptures, opening and change.

   

  Not only can the work paradigmatically explain the end of the Middle Ages and the development of art history. Furthermore, the it invites discovery: plants can be identified, animals and groups of figures with their actions tell stories that can be researched, re-enacted, developed further and transformed into the present day. And last but not least, the linking of divine and earthly reality allows analogies to virtual and real, individual and global worlds of life.

   

  References

  • Brinkmann, Bodo/ Kemperdick, Stephan (eds.): Das Paradiesgärtlein. In: German Paintings in the Städel: 1300 - 1500, Catalogues of the Paintings in the Städel Art Institute. Frankfurt am Main/ Mainz 2002, pp. 93 -120
  • Leaflet of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut on the work: "Das Paradiesgärtlein", c. 1410-1420. Upper Rhenish Master, mixed media on oak, 26.2 x 33.4 cm. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main o.J., o.S.
  • Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, Prehn'sches Kabinett. http://bildersammlung-prehn.de/de/node/946 (06.03.2019)
  • Keazor, Henry: "Manu et voce". Iconographic Notes on the Frankfurt Paradise Garden. Original publication in: Bergdolt, Klaus/ Bonsanti, Giorgio (eds.): Opere e giorni: studisu mille anni d'arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel, Venezia 2001, pp. 231-240. http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/2344/1/Keazor_Manu_et_voce_Ikonographische_Notizen_zum_Frankfurter_Paradiesgärtlein_2001.pdf (07.03.2019).

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  Patrique deGraft-Yankson

  Akan definition of Colour

  The Akan people have no precise terminologies that assign a ‘name’ which interprets into the meaning of colour the way it is understood in English and other languages. In other words, most of the answers to the question ‘what is colour’ makes very little meaning to a pure Akan speaker whose understanding of colour transcends a scientific definition. In spite of several efforts by contemporary linguists to subject the Akan concept of colour to nomenclatural consideration, the traditional Akan people continue to describe hues by their relationship with similar colours in nature.

  Consequently, terminologies in Akan, which are associated with the word colour, are likely to describe what a hue looks like in association with the natural (or in few occasions, manmade environment) or how a hue makes one feel, think or behave. Among numerous attempts at coming up with an Akan word for ‘colour’, the ones many respondents settled on were yɛbea, subea, su, husuo, ahusuo and bↄbea. These words, which mean almost the same in Akan, literally describe the nature, quality or, probably more precisely, the physical look/appearance of something. By implication therefore, the terminologies deduced are more general and their usage go beyond the description of just the colour of an object or a situation under discussion.

   

  Colour names

  Colour names among the Akan people, are often given directly after identifiable objects within the known environment. Therefore, names given to colour in Akan have the tendency of affecting the perception, understanding and accurate adaptation of colour among the Akan people. Name, like colour itself, has strong cultural significance. Therefore, names that are understood in one’s language are likely to have better cultural associations and connections with their people than those that sound foreign.

  In this regard, many Akan people are of the opinion that all efforts at identifying names for colours should continue with the culture of associating colours with the local names of known objects among the Akan people. For instance, if there are names such as ahabanmon (fresh leaves) for green and akokↄ serade/akokↄ aŋoa (chicken fat) for yellow, there could also be names like ahabanfunu/ahatawfun (dead leaves) for brown, gyafrane/gyanframa (fire flames) for orange, gon/dwene (gray hair) for gray, etc.

   

  Number of colours

  The number of colours recognizable by a traditional Akan are as many as those identifiable and describable in nature. As already indicated however, recognized Akan colour names and their identification are mostly in relation to those discernible in nature, for which reason their descriptions are broadly categorized. The following are colours available in the traditional Akan language.

  • Kↄkↄↄ (Red)

  To a very large extent, kↄkↄↄ, the sound of the name of the colour identified as red among the Akan people is more onomatopoeic than semantical in interpretation. Kↄↄ, the root word, visualizes the sensation of the word glow. Therefore, kↄkↄↄ actually connotes more to complexion with a strong bright colour. It commands an ambience of hot brightness, usually with scorching visual sensation, rather than a simple colour name. For this reason, kↄkↄↄ is attributable to all objects that emit some warmth in their visual ascriptions. Therefore, whilst a ripe pepper is described as kↄkↄↄ, ripe mangos, ripe oranges, glittering gold, burning coal, sunny skies, flames, the skin of a ‘white man’, etc. are all kↄkↄↄ as well. In the Akan colour scheme therefore, colours that could be placed analogous to kↄkↄↄ include red, orange, pink, wine and the like.

  • Fitaa/Fufuw (White)

  Fitaa/fufuw is white, light, plain, spotless, clean, neat, pure, holy, untainted and incorrupt. Moreover, fitaa/fufuw is always associated with cleanliness, purity, victory and spirituality. It denotates white coruscating brightness, visual spotlessness and stainlessness. No matter where it is spotted, the associated psychological and spiritual experience comes naturally, and this is inert in almost every Akan.

  Another dimension of fitaa/fufuw is its direct association with light especially when it reflects bright objects to shine. When something shines or sparkles, or hyerɛn as it would be said in Akan, it is associated with brightness and for that matter, white. In this regard, a spark that would be lighted by any colour to give the feeling of brightness will be described as fitaa. The reason is that the psychological feeling of brightness invoked by the sensation is more important than its sensation on the eye.

  • Tuntum

  One does not need to understand the word tuntum to be able to link its semantic association with weight and heaviness. Tuntum connotes darkness and visual weight, and technically expressed, all the cool colours on the colour wheel fall within the brackets of colours in this category. Tuntum connotes darkness, gloom and heaviness. To the Akan, tuntum does not only stand for black, but absence of lightness, brightness, shine, glow, gaiety, happiness and sparkle. This is not to say that tuntum in Akan spells doom. Just as with all the other colours, the reason behind its application is what matters most to the Akan. For instance, the weight and compactness of tuntum also represents unmatched strength and solidity. Hence, expressions such as black power, black beauty, black star and black magic connote the highest levels or degrees attainable in the referent condition. So, whereas tuntum or dark colours are used in the expression of gloomy and moody conditions or situations, they are also considered for situations that require seriousness, formality, deep concentration, calmness, maturity, strength and energy. Again, in its association with darkness and stillness of dark night, tuntum also connotes calmness, coolness, rest, quietness and serenity.

   

  The Akan Colour Chart: Minimal Dimensions of the Akan Colour Scheme

  The following charts present attempts at putting into perspective the minimal dimensions of the Akan colour scheme. As mentioned earlier, everything that qualifies to be described as colour from the Akan point of view can be located within three broad colour spectra—tuntum (dark), fitaa (white) and kↄkↄↄ/memen (glow, spark, shine), and they physically manifest in the shades and tints of black, white and red. Right from this point, it is clear that colour among the Akan is perceived more with feelings than just the light sensation it emits. Therefore, the colours that fall under these themes are believed to share more physiological, psychological and spiritual feelings than aesthetical feelings (even though that is an integral part). In the examples of natural colours associated with colour names in the tables below therefore, the ripeness of pepper, mango, orange and tomatoes are all described as kↄↄ, establishing the overall feeling they evoke. The greenness of a virgin forest, the darkness of rain clouds, the depth of the deep blue seas and the blackness of charcoal are all tumm or tuntum (dark) because of their command of psychological heaviness. The bright skies, the white flower, cotton and the grey hair are all fitaa because they share similar ambience and invoke the same feeling of brightness. It should also be noted that apart from tuntum (black, dark), fufuw/fitaa (white, bright) and kↄkↄↄ/memen (red, glow, spark, shine), none of the associated colours has a name in Akan. What they have, at best, could be discussed as descriptions. In other words, colours of objects are rather described than named.

   

  The following charts illustrate colour from the perspective of the participants in this study, as illustrated by the author:

  

   

  Figure 1: Akan colour category Tuntum and its natural colour associations. (Photo: the author)

   

  

   

  Figure 2: Akan colour category Fitaa/Fufuw and its natural colour associations. (Photo: the author)

  

   

  Figure 3: Akan colour category Kↄkↄↄ/Memen and its natural colour associations. (Photo: the author)

   

  From the above charts, the Akan colour reference scheme above was derived.

   

  Implications for design and design education

  Cultural understanding of colour from Akan perspectives will direct how colours could be appropriately grouped under the appropriate themes to enhance effective appreciation of design as well as effective communication. It would also ensure that the role of language and cultural interpretation of colour is given due recognition in the design education process.

   

  Reference

  • deGraft-Yankson, Patrique (2020), ‘Of the Akan people: Colour and design education in Ghana’, International Journal of Education Through Art, 16:3, pp. 399–416, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/eta_00041_1

   

   

  published November 2020

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  Mary Claire Kidenda

  Kenya is extraordinarily rich in creativity, materials, and ideas sources of inspiration reflected in their artefacts which has evolved to its current prosperous state over the centuries. The Kenyan culture can be seen in the visual arts, applied arts, food, music, dance, sports, fashion, literature, and theatre. The artefacts are an extraordinary source of inspiration and nourishment for the artist. Their designs embody African design aesthetics that have retained traditional designs as they also reflect elements of innovation, hybridity, sustainability and modernity (Maina et al., 2017). The artefacts reflect religious beliefs and cultural values – two inseparable elements enmeshed in Kenyan craft. The Kenyan traditional art is fundamentally functional, meeting some specific utilitarian purposes, whereas its aesthetic consideration is typically regarded as having some secondary significance. Art was integrated into everyday aspects of life from formal ceremonies and religious rites to daily household tasks. The arfetacts were produced by skilled experienced crafts persons who were found in the societies.  Art is an expression of a particular community or culture through the employment of local materials and craftsmanship.

   

  The Jua Kali manufacturing subsector is the predominant creator of craft products in Kenya (Maina et al., 2017). Jua Kali is a self-organising community of practice producing goods. It is comprised of artisans running micro and small enterprises that are not fully integrated into the mainstream formal economy. The artisans learn skills through traditional apprenticeship (TA). Apprenticeship training is regarded as a critical contributor to skills supply, fostering economic development in Kenya. It involves the transmission of the tacit rather than the explicit knowledge and is the most tangible exhibition of the intangible cultural heritage. It facilitates the transmission of skills from a custodian of knowledge, the Master Craftsman. It combines ethnic design and aesthetics and contemporary styling in craft production in Kenya. Involves the transmission of the tacit rather than the explicit knowledge through observation, imitation and reputation. Besides, apprenticeship ensures that the knowledge and skills that relate to the craft are passed down to future generation so that they continue to be produced within their communities. The learning of the Kenyan design, aesthetics is therefore, an intergenerational phenomenon.

   

  Kenya's ethnic groups can be divided into three broad linguistic groups Bantu, Nilotic and Cushite. The Nilotic tribes  in Kenya include Luo, Kalenjin, Maasai and Turkana (Hino et al., 2019). The Nilotic speakers migrated from Sudan and Egypt. They are traditionally pastoralists and fishermen and reside in Kenya's vast Rift-Valley region and around Lake Victoria (Madut, 2020). Each of these communities has its traditions, customs, and practices, imbued with multiple layers of culture, colonial legacies, and migration that add to the rich Kenyan cultures (Deisser & Njuguna, 2016) . The distinctness and confluence of these cultures have served as artistic inspiration for many a cultural product creatively fashioned out of raw materials primarily sourced from the natural environment.

   

  The Luo or Lwoo (also called Joluo, singular Jaluo) are an amalgamated agro-fishery and Nilotic Dholuo ethnolinguistic groups in Africa that inhabit an area ranging from South Sudan and Ethiopia, through northern Uganda and eastern Congo (DRC) (Ojwang, 2021; Prince & Geissler, 2008), into western Kenya, and the Mara Region of Tanzania west Kenya, eastern Uganda, and in Mara Region in northern Tanzania. The name Luo or Low means "God's life-bearing exhalation.' The past economic activities of the Luo included fishing and cattle farming (Ndeda, 2019). Agriculture, especially that which involves staple crops such as maize and beans (Ojwang, 2021). Nilotic communities such as Turkana and Pokot (ekicholong) and even Bantus such as Kamba (mumo ya muthamia) and Taita (kifumbi) in Kenya have traditional stools that have been used for various cultural and functional purposes (Somjee, 1993).

   

  This paper discusses the Luo Traditional Three-Legged Stool called “Kom Nyaluo” in the Luo tribe (Hoehler-Fatton, 1996). My interest in this stool arose because I am a Luo lady married to a Luo man who owns the stool.

       

  Kidenda, “Domestic Exhibition of Kom Nyaluo to EVC Expert Panel Discussing the Versions of the Traditional Stool”, Wood and Beads, 2022 Karen, Nairobi

   

  The circular top of Kom Nyaluo symbolises the round universe and a miniature universe on which the husband reins in a home. It is a sign of prestige and leadership, reflecting the status or power of men or the husband within society and a reflection of the round traditional Luo huts. Its legs embody male masculinity and virility (Biko, 2010). Only the father was qualified to sit on the seat as he had requisite authority and was the owner of all the women he brought forth life with. He would sit on it when addressing issues; women and children would sit on the ground.

   

  The traditional Kom Nyaluo was small, with a height of about 30cm from the ground and decorated with beads (Hoehler-Fatton, 1996). Each elder had their stool, and women and children were forbidden from sitting on it. Kom Nyaluo is associated with the authority the elders wielded and the respect that they were accorded in their homes and society. The stool design reflected the traditional activities of men and women. The men worked and socialised outside the home, and the women mostly worked inside and around the house and garden (shamba). A married young man with a few children applies for an eldership position in a ceremony where he hosts community elders. He would be dressed in traditional regalia, carry a spear and fly whisk. The elders would sit him on Kom Nyaluo and crown him as an elder.

   

  Most traditional Luo homes were polygamous, and the stool played a significant role in controlling the wife, which enjoyed marital favours and childbearing. The husband or man of the house would send the stool to the woman's hut. He would want to spend the night in her hut. The stool would be sent secretly, and early the following day, the man would sneak back into his hut so that the other wives would not know whom he slept with. This brilliantly averted obvious petty jealousy will arise from a polygamous home. If one wife felt that she didn't have the stool in her house often enough, she would ask the first wife to intervene on her behalf. "If the first wife didn't like her, she would ensure her complaints did not reach their husband. The seat symbolised love and joy and sustained life in a traditional Luo homestead. Literally and figuratively, of course. Kom Nyaluo did not only represent the authority of the man but also love and joy and sustained life in the traditional Luo home (Biko, 2010).

   

  Kom Nyaluo was used during the levirate ceremony or "tero", where a widow was remarried to a relative of their deceased husband. The levirate union is consummated by sexual intercourse on the first night. If the widow invited the elders for a drink the day after the night of "ter", it was a sign that the night had been successful. During the drinking session, there was the enthronement ceremony of the new head of the home onto the stool of the deceased, "Kom wuon dala" (seat of the homeowner). With the enthronement, it was as if the dead man was alive again (Lutta, 2015). After marrying and having a few children, a Luo man applies for elderhood by hosting the elders at a party where he will be crowned and dressed in traditional regalia. Signs and symbols of authority that include a spear fly whisk and a three-legged stool are given to the elder.

  Production Process

  In this case study, the Kom Nyaluo is produced by an artisan from Siaya County Jua Kali Association craftsman. He learned his father's craft skills through traditional apprenticeship and made his products on demand. The Luo traditional stools are carved with logs from ober (mvule tree), ngo'wo (fig tree), duwa (oak tree) and the member (mango tree). The logs are chopped by a power saw and dried for one week. These are hardwood types that are strong, durable and water-resistant. They also feature unique colours and grain patterns that create a stunning display. Oak is light yellowish-brown and generally straight-grained; it is also hard and durable. Mvule wood comes from the African teak, known in Nigeria as the iroko tree; it is challenging, dense, and durable. Fig tree wood sometimes contains latex, which can be toxic or an allergen. Since the fig trees seldom grow straight, their boards tend to be shorter. However, the wood is soft and not very strong. Mango wood is relatively easy to work with; it is easier to shape, plane and sand while still strong and durable. It is also friendly to waxing and staining, making it excellent for furniture or other household objects.

  

  Kidenda, “Wood Logs used for curving out Kom Nyaluo”, 2013, Siaya, Kenya

   

  Each log costs the artisan ten thousand Kenya shillings (Ksh. 10,000), equivalent to sixty-seven (67) euros. The stool is carved from a single block of wood, the wood between stem and roots, which has twisted grains that are more durable and cannot break or crack. The stool is made without using joints or nails. The seat takes the shape of a log. The carver uses Koyo (adze) to fashion Kom Nyaluo from the log, which does not require nails or joints.

   

  

  Kidenda, “Curving out the Kom Nyaluo from a log”, 2013, Siaya, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

  Its top takes the circular shape of the log, and after carving, it is smoothened with a furr (metal scrapper for smoothing wood).

   

  

  Smoothening the Circular Top Using Furr, 2013, Siaya, Kenya; Furr, the handmade metal tool used to smoothen the top of Kom Nyaluo, 2013, Siaya, Kenya (photos by Mary Clare Kidenda) 

   

  They are then sandpapered and vanished using paintbrushes.

   

  

  Sandpapered and vanished sets of Kom Nyaluo, 2013, Siaya, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

   

  A compass is used for drawing geometrical patterns on the top of the stool.

  

  The drawing of geometrical patterns using a compass, 2013, Siaya, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

  Supposedly the design is inspired by a parquet floor in a European-style house owned by Tom Mboya. The wire inlay practised by the Kamba may also have been a model. Thereafter, wood, glass beads, metal, and colourful Maasai beads are banged onto the top, providing intricate decorative artwork.

  

  The inserting/banging of beads into the top of Kom Nyaluo, 2013, Siaya, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

  Finished: A Luo Dignitary Stool “Kom Nyaluo”

   

  Variety Designs of Finished Kom Nyaluo, 2019, Karen, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

  When Sara went to the US for the inauguration of Mr Obama as president in January 2009 Mama Sarah carried a similar stool. In 2015 when President Obama visited Kenya, he was given  a traditional Luo stool (Langat, 2015).

  

  Kom Nyaluo Created by Luberastus Onyango, Wood, glass beads, metal, 2020 Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

   

   

   

  Luberastus Onyango was a renowned Kom Nyaluo craftsman (he died in 1988) whose stools have been given to at least 2 US presidents as gifts President, including John F. Kennedy and Barrack Obama.

  

  Variety Designs of Finished Kom Nyaluo, 2019, Karen, Kenya (photo by Mary Clare Kidenda)

   

  A generation of Kenyan artists and designers are translating their view of Kenyan design into beautifully crafted products and creating an aesthetic diverse as the tribes and cultures that make up Kenya. This is evident in the JKS in the preservation and modification of the designs like Kom Nyaluo through a traditional apprenticeship that is the critical training methodology of apprenticeship used in Jua Kali Associations. This is evident with the continued production of Kom Nyaluo because of for its cultural utility and aesthetic functionality in the contemporary modern spaces. Artisans and designers are to re-direct and co-create new narratives that re-position philosophical discourse on aesthetics, among other contemporary debates. A generation of Kenyan artists and designers are translating their view of Kenyan design into beautifully crafted products and creating an aesthetic diverse as the tribes and cultures that make up Kenya.

   

  References

  • Biko, J. (2010). When in Kisumu, make sure you visit the museum. Eastern African Publication. https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/magazine/when-in-kisumu-make-sure-you-visit-the-museum--1297986
  • Deisser, A.-M., & Njuguna, M. (2016). Conservation of natural and cultural heritage in Kenya: A cross-disciplinary approach. UCL Press.
  • Hino, H., Langer, A., Lonsdale, J., & Stewart, F. (2019). From Divided Pasts to Cohesive Futures: Reflections on Africa. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hoehler-Fatton, C. (1996). Women of fire and spirit: History, faith, and gender in Roho religion in western Kenya. Oxford University Press.
  • Langat, P. (2015). Mama Sarah reveals her special gift to Obama during visit. Nation. https://nairobinews.nation.africa/mama-sarah-reveals-her-special-gift-to-obama-during-kenyan-visit/
  • Lutta, C. (2015). The Traditional Levirate Custom as Practiced by Luo Of Kenya. University of Gavle.
  • Madut, K. K. (2020). The Luo people in South Sudan: Ethnological heredities of East Africa. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Maina, S. M., Rukwaro, R. W., & Onyango, W. H. (2017). Infusing Design In The Jua Kali (Informal Sector) Production Processes. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(2), 1–12.
  • Ndeda, M. A. J. (2019). Population movement, settlement and the construction of society to the east of Lake Victoria in precolonial times: The western Kenyan case. The East African Review [Online], 52.
  • Ojwang, H. H. (2021). A study of Luo Ethnobotanical Terminology with implications for Lexicographic Practice. Lifelong Education Material Publishers.
  • Prince, R., & Geissler, W. (2008). Becoming “One Who Treats”: A Case Study of a Luo Healer and Her Grandson in Western Kenya. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 32(4), 447–4.
  • Somjee, S. (1993). Material culture of Kenya. East African Educational Publishers.

  

  Osuanyi Quaicoo Essel

  Pan-African collective memory: Sociocultural power and identity making on indigenous stools from Ghana and Kenya

   

  Indigenous stools play significant roles in Ghanaian and Kenyan cultures and societies, especially, among the Akan and Masai ethnic groups in the two respective countries. Stools in the sociocultural context serve many functions. One of the primary functional roles is that, it serves as object for sedentary purposes. It is used as a utilitarian object for sitting, welcoming visitors, relaxation for people, for example, family and friends. In Ghana, it is customary to offer a visitor a chair (stool) by way of welcoming, serving him/her water, before asking the visitor of his/her motive for the visit. In the first instance, a visitor is given a sit to relax, followed by cup of water for drinking before asking the visitor to give purpose for the visit. Offering a visitor a chair shows an overt acceptance and respect for his/her presence. This traditional etiquette of serving visitors is ingrained the sociocultural life of both Ghana and Kenya.

   

  Amongst the Akan of Ghana, a visitor is usually given a traditional stool as a seat that may befit his/her status in the traditional society or culture. A family may have different stools: those for showcasing power and authority of its user, honouring guests, and everyday usage by the household. The usage of stools in this context depicts its status-defining tendencies.

   

  Apart from signifying status of individuals, stools, among the Akan of Ghana symbolises the authority of the ethnic or nation states. Stools in Ghana, generally serves as a symbolic soul of the society which links people to the traditional leadership (Antubam, 1963; Amenuke et al, 1991). The stool carries authoritative presence and signifies leadership concept. Warriors, clan heads, chiefs, kings used it to signify their status.

   

  Stools serve as scared and authoritative object in the traditional chieftaincy institution of the southern part of Ghana. Kings/chiefs are enstooled in southern Ghana while those at northern part are enskinned. This implies that in the cultural rituals in the making of Kings/chiefs, stools are inevitable. Amongst the chiefdom, there are several ritualistic uses of stool. Some stools in the court of a chief may be used only once in his or her lifetime. Some are also used once a year during traditional festivities while some are used on daily bases.

   

  As an object strongly connected with power and authority, the Ghanaian stool has three basic parts: the arc-shaped top, the middle portion and the flat base. Its arc-shaped top symbolises loving embrace of women or the concept of motherliness (Amenuke et al, 1991; Antubam, 1963). The middle portion usually gives the stool its name based on the symbol used in representing a concept or idea. The name of the of a stool could be based on a proverb, Adinkra symbol (Figure 1), traditional emblem or idea. For example, the stool in Figure 1 derived its name from the Adinkra symbol which has been stylised to occupy the middle portion, hence the name Nyansapow Stool.

   

  

   Figure 1: Nyansapow (Wisdom knot) stool, wood, Ghana National Museum, Photo: the author.

   

  The recognition of the presence of God in the society, gender roles and the presence of children is also acknowledged by the middle part of the stool. Design of a stool may adopt basic beliefs and practices of symbolic significance to the society in general. The symbolic adaptation speaks to the visual presentation of Ghanaian societal values including concept of societal functions, cosmic beliefs, family and gender roles.

   

  As a utilitarian object, the stool plays vital roles in the rites of passage (birth, puberty rites, marriage and death) in indigenous Ghanaian and Kenyan cultures in different context. In indigenous Masai culture, stools are used by husbands as object of announcing their eminent visit to their wives on rotational basis. In many African societies, marrying more than one woman is an accepted norm just as same sex marriage are acceptable in other continents of the world. African society holds polygamy as a culture and not in negative perspective as non-African wrongly perceives it. Masai men with more than one wife usually build their houses in circular orientation, allocating a room each to the wives. The house of the man is situated in the middle of the circular-arranged houses. With this traditional set up, the stool is used as a preserve for the husband to signal his presence and authority. To announce his official intention of visiting one of the wives in the same compound, he sends his messenger to send his stool to one of the wives he intended to visit. By seeing and receiving the stool, the wife interprets this symbolic gesture to mean official announcement of her husband’s visit.

   

  Figure 2: Traditional Kenyan stool used in negotiating visitation to wives, Found in the personal collection Mary Clare Kidenda. Kenya, Photo: the author.

   

  The design of the Masai stool of Kenyan (Figure 2) varies from that of the Akan of Ghana. The Maasai stool features a circular-shaped top and prominent three-legged phallus-shaped upright stands.  Usually decorated with traditional Masai beads, the top of the stool has bowl-shaped surface that serves as a comfortable receptor of the buttocks of the user. The tip of the phallus-shaped stands touches the ground and gently bends inward, and depicts crown-shaped cork memetic of the phallus. These observable characteristic features symbolise the presence and potency of the manhood in procreation. Despite its simplistic appearance, the stool creates a collective memory of marital relationships and the supervisory power of males and the loving embrace of women. Interestingly, this depiction to the African, is not a show of chauvinism but a reminder to males to protect and care for women within their power. Generally, having secret rendezvous or extra marital affairs is frond up by society. Performing official marital rights to marry a lady is the traditional expectation rather than having them as mistresses.

   

  In Ghana, the head of a clan, warrior, chief/king and queen mothers uses the stool to symbolise authority. For that matter, the presidential seat was fashioned with inspiration from the shape of the stool. Despite the difference in design concept of the Kenyan and Ghanaian stools, both signify a collective memory of marital relationships, idea of procreation, leadership authority and the loving embrace of women in the society.

  References

  • Amenuke, S. K., Dogbe, B. K., Asare, S. K., Ayiku, F. D. &  Bafoe, A. General knowledge in Art for senior secondary schools. Evans Brothers Limited.
  • Antubam, K. (1963). Ghana’s heritage of culture. Koehler & Amelang.
  • Asihene, E. V. (1978). Understanding the traditional art of Ghana. Associated University Presses

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  Elfriede Dreyer

  Matiyane depicts cities of the world in the form of large mixed-media panoramas, utilising a naïve style of schematic outlining and an almost unsophisticated usage of coloured pencils and crayons, not unlike the early travelogues of the Renaissance and colonial explorers. In his panoramas, the landscape is flattened out into a subjective urban picturesque adorned with the city’s commercially most well-known markers functioning as a concise overview of or introduction to its most important historical events and its icons. Although Matiyane generally presents wide panoramas of cities, thus ‘walking’ multi-viewpoint compositions, he often creates panopticon-like designs in which he functions as a kind of ‘watchman’ surveying the city from a single point of observation – his own. In the late eighteenth century, the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham coined the idea of the panopticon as a particular type of institutional building design that could allow surveillance by a single watchman in such a way that the entire institution could be surveyed from a single angle. The term ‘panopticon’ has been derived from Panoptes in Greek mythology that was a giant with a hundred eyes and known as a very efficient watchman. Bentham's architectural designs were very much aimed at the design of institutions such as prisons, for instance, or corporate environments, where inmates or workers could be surveyed without them realising it. Bentham’s ideas acted as precursor to twentieth-century technology such as closed-circuit television (CCTV). Having been territorialised under the apartheid regime of segregation and living in Attridgeville a township outside Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital, Matiyane embarks on a kind of symbolic remapping of these histories. Operating without sufficient transport and with minimal equipment and art materials places limitations on his mobility and professional practice; within the context of the strenuous context of his daily battles, the spectacularity of powerful world cities and their apparent glitz and glamour to him seem like places of pleasure and the world like a global utopia where poverty and agony can be forgotten. In his Panorama of Africa: Cape to Cairo, Matiyane expresses a particular sense of place and a human condition, echoed in Alice Ming Wai Jim‘s (2008:264)  description of Hong Kong in ‘Mediating place-identity: Notes on Mathias Woo’s A Very Good City’: Over the last decade, contemporary art in Hong Kong, informed by travel(ing) theory, the special administrative region’s ambiguous (post) colonial-national-global connections and its inimitable set of historical and cultural situations, has been preoccupied with the themes of mobility, transition, and location in its representations of the city. This fixation, or, rather, the urgency of its mediation in not only artistic but also cultural, economic, and political arenas is inextricably linked to an ongoing elaboration of a Hong Kong identity. But assertions of “who we are” are often intimately related to suppositions of “where we are,” and ideas captured in the environmental psychological concept of place-identity. Matiyane’s sense of identity and notion of ‘who he is’ is similarly tied to ‘where he is’, but virtually he can be anywhere. In every panorama, the artist traces the contemporary city’s ontology of mobility and transitivity in images of technology, airplanes, trains and boats. To him these images represent power, positive energy and dynamism, being tropes of transition and movement towards improvement, development and transformation. His utopian imagery can be interpreted as being populated by a multitude of heterotopic elements, such as powerful personae and images of transitivity represented by trains and boats that function autonomously but concurrently in close relation to their socio-cultural and geopolitical contexts; as liminal instruments connecting space and place; and as vigorous agents of change. In a work such as Panorama of Gauteng (2014), for instance, the artist included images as well as the life history of Nelson Mandela, interpreted as the as an iconic symbol of transformation and change, and in Panorama of Africa: Cape to Cairo, he once again presents Mandela as the most powerful legacy in Africa. It becomes a stratagem of power mediation to point out the country’s instruments of advantage within the global sphere of competition. His vision radiates optimism and hope and deconstructs the notion of the processes of historisation as categorically fixed, predetermined and non-negotiable. Through the act of being empowered to depict any place in the world, the artist constructs his identity in the domain of the global self that utopianistically interacts with perceived spectacular environments. By mostly depicting cities that he has never been to, Matiyane expresses a desire and a longing for the exotic Other, yet his relationship to place is transmutative in essence. He imagines places where the home of the place–identity involves a process in which the self and local become metamorphosed into the global world. The artist becomes a ‘nomad’, displaced and diasporic in his pursuit of fame, wealth and global stardom through the fusion with ‘famous’ and ‘successful’ cities in his depictions. Global psychogeography is created in which cultural disparities are flattened in renderings of cities and their surrounding landscapes, each endowed with air and ground transport, patterns of housing, own histories, a national flag and a city centre. Becoming ‘playful masquerading’, the artist’s presentation of panoramic landscapes imbued by factual information makes the real, perceived and imaginary differences between cities, cultures and worlds fall away. Surveyed through the panopticon framework of his panoramas, there are superficially neither perceivable binaries of have and have-not, poverty and wealth; nor anxieties, losses or racial discrimination. East meets West meets Africa in a global blueprint of urban patterning. By crossing the borders of the self and the local in his depiction of cities, Matiyane becomes a virtual flâneur of the cities of the world and a cartographer of imagined spaces.

  Reference Ming Wai Jim, A. Mediating place-identity: Notes on Mathias Woo’s A very good city, in Asselin, O, Lamoureux, J, Ross, C (eds). 2008. Precarious visualities: New perspectives on identification in contemporary art and visual culture. Montreal & Kingston/London/Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

  About the artist Major exhibitions since 2008 2018, Venice Architecture Biennale, Japan Pavillion 2018, Titus Matiyane’s Cities of the World, ZAM, The Hague 2014, Cool Capital Biennale, curated by Elfriede Dreyer and Adele Adendorff. Panorama of Pretoria: Mamelodi to Soweto 2014, Reserve Bank, Cool Capital Biennale exhibition. Panorama of Pretoria: Mamelodi to Soweto 2013, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Artesis University College, Antwerp. Group exhibition, Nomad bodies curated by Elfriede Dreyer 2012, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg. Panorama of Polokwane to Sasolburg 2012, Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria. Group exhibition, Me 3, curated by Elfriede Dreyer 2011, La Société générale, Casablanca, Morocco. Cities of the world exhibition and Panorama of Western Cape. Curated by Annemieke de Klerk 2010, Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria. Group exhibition, Cities in transition, with Eric Duplan and Lucas Thobejane, curated by Elfriede Dreyer 2010, Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art. Panorama of Lille 2010, Big 5 Festival, Teater aan het Spuy, The Hague. Panoramas of Cape Town, Berlin, Tanzania, Mali, Dubai, Johannesburg, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu Natal. Curated by Annemieke de Klerk 2009, UJ Gallery. Cities of the world. Panoramaas of New York, Pretoria, London, Dubai, Kwazulu Natal, Pietersburg to Sasolburg 2008, Aedesland, Berlin. Cities of the world. Curated by Annemieke de Klerk 2008, National Museum Of Mali, Bamako. Cities of the world. Curated by Annemieke de Klerk 2008, Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria. Group exhibition, On the globe, with Pieter Swanepoel and Diek Grobler, curated by Elfriede Dreyer 2008, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Delft. Cities of the world. Curated by Annemieke de Klerk Publications Annemieke de Klerk, Melinda Silverman, Stephen Hobbs, Wytze Patijn, 2007. Catalogue for the exhibition, Titus Matiyane: Cities of the World. Afdeling Bouwkunde, Technische Hogeschool Delft. 010 Publishers. Published for the purposes of the Cities of the World travelling exhibition, 2007- 2008 and the manifestation "African Perspectives" held December 6-8,2007, both commissioned by the Faculty of Architecture of Delft University of Technology. Makorakora: Shaping wire into vehicles.  1985. SA Today. Article featuring photograph of model of spacecraft “Challenger” made by artist. Rankin, E. 1994. Images of metal: Post-war sculptures and Assemblages in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.     published February 2020

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  Patrique deGraft-Yankson

   

  School crests, school logos or school emblems as they are variously referred to are a popular feature in the functions of all academic institutions in Ghana. They are normally designed to visually reflect the key ideologies and philosophies upon which educational institutions thrive. In determining a logo for academic institutions therefore, efforts are put in place to ensure that they serve an appreciable level of visual representativeness. By this, school logos in so many ways establish emotional connections with parents, students and other stakeholders, whose interpretations and perceptions determine their level of confidence and trust in the institutions.

   

  This logo, by its very visual appeal, informed by the familiarity of the key compositional element and simplicity, generates a point for discussion. Moreover, the popularity and the history of Achimota College always makes it an important destination for various studies pertaining to senior high school education in Ghana. In my current interest in the study of icons and symbols therefore, the Achimota School crest comes handy, worthy and accessible.

   

  The designer of the Achimota School crest is not really known as most of the literature on the school's history is silent on the subject. However, judging from the fact that the key concept behind the logo emanated from a popular quote from Dr Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey, the Old Achimota Association attributes both its origin and design to him (OAA, 1973). The creation of the Achimota School crest follows strictly the conventional crest design procedures which inform the design of several school crests in Ghana. It is composed of a classic narrow base shield, with the all-important motto of the school, ut omnes unum sint (Latin phrase meaning ‘that all may be one’), rendered in an arc form below the shield to provide a mantling and support of a sort to the design. In a rather minimalistic fashion, the key element of the design which also represents the main ideal of the school (the piano keyboard) has been rendered in amazing level of simplicity which makes it easy to perceive and reproduce by all graphic reproduction methods.

   

  By this design process, the Achimota school logo offers a depth of meaning without being too literal in its composing elements. It has a pleasing contrast between dark and light, and connection to the existing school structures. Most importantly, the logo has sustained the semiotics and narratology which students, parent and stakeholders have always responded to since the establishment of the school.

   

  It can be said that the logo of the Achimota college is more than a visual representation of the ideals of an educational institution. By mere consideration of the diversity in the caliber of people who masterminded its foundation, the school’s logo could indeed be described as the very foundation upon which the school was built. The logo seems to echo silently a belief that underscores the essence of peaceful coexistence of all manner of people, as exemplified in the collaboration of people of different colours from different parts of the world coming together to establish an institution of that caliber. It must be noted that the use of black and white keys of the piano to signify the harmony that comes along with peaceful co-existence of people of all races mean a lot more than anti-racial advocacy. It is obvious that Aggrey, drawing from his own experiences as a black young man who has been able to successfully attain the feats that could be equaled to what any white young man of his age could attain, was drawing the attention of the African youth to their own strength and capabilities. This is because Aggrey lived in a time when the “black man” looked up to the “white man” as an embodiment of all wisdom and custodian of all the goodies that mankind needed for their existence. The idea that he, as a black young man could attain a higher education just as the white man had not been very much considered. Aggrey making himself a case for the possibility of the black race mixing up perfectly with the white race to produce something good therefore seemed to be the underlining principle for the creation of the logo of the Achimota school.

   

  The question of Aggrey creating this logo not for some cooperate body or a church is also an interesting factor to consider. As far back as 1924, Aggrey sought to established the efficacy of ‘education’ in the promulgation of ideals, principles and philosophies. This is deducible from the efforts he put in co-founding the Achimota College with Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg and Rev Alec Garden Fraser; opening up the college for both male and female; and ensuring that teachers were made up of blacks, whites, males, females. This indicates Dr Aggrey’s confidence in education as an important avenue for the promotion of peaceful co-existence and harmonious living.  He believed strongly that quality education would contribute to balance and a peaceful society, and promote his conviction that ‘black keys of the piano give good sounds and the white keys give good sounds, but the combination of the two gives the best melody’. What a beautiful reason for all mankind to live as one!

   

  Considering ongoing efforts towards the achievement of a coherent global community, as well as the premium laid on education as a single unit that can be used to achieve the sustainable development goals, it could be concluded that the relevance of the Achimota school logo is important today more than it has ever been.  It therefore makes a whole world of sense to argue that the logo of the Achimota school could be considered as a strong icon for well-balanced education and a perfect advocate for education for sustainable development (ESD).

   

   

  References

  • Old Achimota Associstion (1973). Dr Aggrey. Retrieved August 3, 2020, from Retrieved 03 https://sites.google.com/site/oaa1973akoras/home/founders/dr-aggrey
  • Wada, K. (2010). Achimota School. Retrieved August 3, 2020, from https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/achimota-college-achimota-school-1924/

   

   

  published August 2020

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  Patrique deGraft-Yankson

   

  Fortunately, contemporary Ghanaian artists like Vincent Akwete Kofi and Kofi Antobam, who by their training, developed both the skills and the mindset to create and fully appreciate African arts have played major interventional roles. They, through rigorous production of masterpieces over the years, led the move to redirect the wavelength of Ghanaian artistic expressiveness along the paths of decolonization. A typical example of these arts is the Crucifix, the selected object for this discussion.

   

  The Artist – Vincent Akwete Kofi

  The Crucifix is a sculpture in the round, measuring 45x10x19 inches, and was created by Vincent Akwete Kofi, a Ghanaian artist who lived between 1923 and 1974. Characteristically, Vincent creates outstanding sculptures in humanistic forms. His sculptures speak to traditional African philosophies, ideals and beliefs (Grobel, 1970), and he through his works, seeks to reinforce the beauty, dynamism and complexities of African art. Indeed, Vincent’s artistic posture was largely informed by his training in the then Achimota College in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), an educational institution which sought to bridge the gap between European and African forms of knowledge (Woets, 2014).

   

  Description and interpretation

  The Crucifix was carved in tropical hard wood, one of Vincent Kofi’s preferred media, with the style and subject matter reminiscing his belief in the creative and objective fusion of lessons from the history of modernism in the arts by an immersion in his Ghanaian heritage. Like his earlier sculptures therefore, the choice of this Euro-Christian theme throws lights on his Pan-Africanism and decolonization intents. 

   

  The sculpture is a depiction of a free-standing human figure with features that conform with his earlier wood carvings, such as depiction of enlarged head and heavy feet which are more representational than naturalistic. Again, the entire form is seen as being directed by the limitations of the tree trunk deliberately chosen for the work. This, of course is one of Kofi’s traditional wood carving styling.

   

  The Crucifix is postured in a clasped forward-bent lower limb. Like the lower limbs, the upper limbs of the figure which are raised over the head and stretched backwards, are also clasped together, depicting the entire image in a rather discomforting posture. Further strengthening the feeling of distress and discomfort in the image is the dropped and lifeless face and facial features of the image. The long thick beard of the image with the tightly fitting cylindrical hat on the head, carved after one of those won by royals among some sections of Ghanaians, give the figure an elderly look.

   

  Other significant features of the image are the exaggerated clasped, forward-bent and wobbly elephantine feet, dropped face with shuttered eyes, flaccid body/skin/muscles (which is visible even in wood), and the heavy beard.

   

  In trying to understand the presentation of the Crucifix, it is important to note that Ghanaians have stories about characters who lived and suffered similar fates as that of the Christ. The Fante people (a section of the Akan ethnic group), for example have records on a man called Ahor, who offered himself as a sacrifice to the gods, when the life of a human being was demanded as an antidote to a calamity which befell the people. Up to today, Ahor is celebrated in a festival called Ahorbaa to commemorate his brave and sacrificial feat. Other ethnic groups in Ghana have similar stories which render the Passion of the Christ not just a familiar phenomenon, but a lived experience recorded in the history of the people.

   

  Also worthy of notice is the familiarity of the various themes which characterize the story of the Christ, such as his kingship, miraculous personality, sacrificial journey and his eventual torture and death. The Crucifix therefore, was Vincent Kofi attempt at depicting the passion of the Christ in a way that would make it familiar and relevant to the people.

   

  The image in Kofi’s Crucifix was therefore needed to be presented as a man with royal personality, as depicted in the cylindrically shaped cap, which is symbolic of some of the Ghanaian royal millinery that depict kingship and authority. This is reinforced by a heavy beard to portray wisdom. Wisdom which is reserved for kings and aged people.

   

  Analysing from the experiences of a people whose history was not devoid of unpleasant experiences, such as enslavement, brutal torture and execution, the image presented in the Euro-Christian Crucifix could not have been a complete representation of the Man of Sorrow described in the Christian holy book (Isaiah 53:3). Kofi therefore saw the need to present a figure which paints a real picture of a man who had gone through an extreme physical pain. Those strong and heavy, yet wobbly feet were a symbol of a man overburdened with sorrows and sins of the world.

   

  Indeed, the man on the Crucifix was dead, with no chance of maintaining a smooth and shiny skin as seen in the Euro-Christian crucifix. In Vincent Kofi’s Crucifix, therefore, he, even in wood, managed to present a flaccid body/skin and muscles which, with the closed eyelids, dropped and lifeless face gave an impression of an extremely tired dead body. Probably an artistic rendition that comes close is Mel Gibson’s crucified Christ in his movie, the Passion of the Christ.

   

  Conclusion

  Early missionaries introduced the Christian religion with its attendant icons, images, stories and language in 1400s. Semblance in religious icons, images, stories and their associated functions made the acceptance of Christianity easier among indigenous Africans/Ghanaians. Vincent Kofi’s Crucifix could therefore be considered as a great effort towards connecting foreign Christian belief systems to known religious experiences, thereby making Christianity much more relevant to the African than it has been.

   

  References

  • African Artists in America (1978). African Affairs, 11 (3), 84-85.
  • Frank, B. (1999). The Visual Arts of Africa: Gender, Power, and Life Cycle Rituals by Judith Perani and Fred T. Smith (A review).  African Affairs, 11 (3), 14-16.

  • Kwami, A. (2016). Kofi, Vincent Akwete (1923–1974). In the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.: Taylor and Francis. Retrieved 31 Dec. 2021, from https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/kofi-vincent-akwete-1923-1974. doi:10.4324/9781135000356-REM845-1

  • Moore, G. (1967). The Arts in the New Africa African Affairs, 66 (263), 140-148.

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  Hanni Geiger

   

  Shudu (2020), a dark-skinned mannequin based on Instagram and other social networks, is a CGI – a 3D computer graphic that, according to its creator Cameron-James Wilson (founder and CEO of the digital modelling agency THE DIIGITALS, https://www.thediigitals.com/), is considered the world's first digital supermodel. With currently more than 218,000 followers (@shudu.gram), she is one of the most booked models and has collaborations with major fashion companies such as Oscar de la Renta or the superstars Tyra Banks and Rihanna (Square, 2018). Yet the genesis of the mannequin and virtual influencer is anything but glamorous: after years as a photographer in the London fashion industry, Wilson retreats to his mother's garden shed in Weymouth, Dorset, and experiments with various design programs on a very cheap gaming computer (Jackson, 2018). In designing Shudu, he was primarily driven by a desire to work freely and “[…] focus on the art rather than the money” (Jackson, 2018). Shudu was intended to be a product of pure creativity, regardless of her later successful integration into the fashion industry (Jackson, 2018).

   

  It takes a closer look to detect the artificiality from the model. Thanks to various digital image editing programs such as Marvelous Designer, CLO and Daz 3D, Wilson deliberately adds small flawed constructions to his very naturalistic-looking mannequin (Jackson, 2018; Square, 2018): scars, hairs, wrinkles and pores provide more liveliness, and thus also more “truthfulness”, if one were to argue in the Benjaminian sense with the aura of the unique or authentic. Basically, this is a completely contrary approach to high-end fashion photography, which classically aims to remove any physical imperfections from the human models until they mutate into doll-like, enraptured beings. This already shows through the external observation of the virtual model that „authenticity“ in the context of digital media and the outdated understanding of reality as distinct from virtuality must be rethought and oppositions in the technical, but also especially in the philosophical-social sense must be questioned.

   

  In order to get closer to this „reality“ or the societal significance of the digital model, it is imperative to look at the controversial debates surrounding the black mannequin. As a white man, Wilson has more often had to face accusations of commercializing black culture, which is legal but equally questionable (Square, 2018). Under the rubric of “cultural appropriation”, “racial expropriation”, “racial capitalism” (Cedric J. Robinson) or “racist plagiarism” (Minh Ha T. Pham), the economic and social exploitation of inferior, marginalized cultures by the dominant white culture is understood as a neo-colonial approach, especially in the broad sector of industry. In this process, social as well as economic value is drawn from an ethnic identity, even generating a “commodity” from it, without thinking about the painful or unpleasant part or even giving minorities a share of the profits. Wilson's implementation of diversity and responsibility in the design process could, according to critics, be read as a clever marketing strategy – after all, “exoticized” phenotypes with very dark skin, high cheekbones and slender, tall stature are currently in vogue (Square, 2018). Particularly problematic in Shudu's design process appears Wilson's inspiration in the “Princess of South Africa Barbie doll”, a special edition Barbie launched in 2002 as one of the “Dolls of the World” collection (Khoabane, 2018). The digital avatar is said to have a similar origin and motivation: born out of the imagination of white companies and creatives to generate commercial success without knowing, considering or including the reality of people of color in the creation and sales process (Square, 2018).

   

  For a holistic understanding of the figure, however, it is also important to analyze it beyond stereotypical argumentation and against the backdrop of its time, its creators and its consumers. As Generation Z and digital natives, the creators and users of virtual influencers are inevitably shaped by the technological changes of everyday life. Their thoughts and actions are primarily derived from the fascination with digital design, which increasingly merges the real and the virtual and makes physically, socially and culturally significant differentiations recede into the background. Wilson seems to use the technical qualities of the digital image, such as its mutability and ubiquity, to draw a picture of a decidedly plural, heterogeneous society in a sustainable way that is independent of time and place. Unlike the dys- and utopian visions of the future of human beings in classical fashion photography or in numerous digital drafts of human beings in art, the figure that exists only virtually seems to be the digital embodiment of a thoroughly real and, above all, present world of life characterized by diversity. With her obvious distancing from the white, male and Western-dominated political and economic mainstream, Shudu offers a template for breaking with the universalism of imperially knitted modernism via strategies of so-called inclusive marketing, which consciously considers diversity in the design process¹.

   

  The fact that the digital visualization of a virtual body that stands for diversity, such as Shudu’s, is particularly suitable for creating meanings around the human body, goes back to the postmodern discourse on the epistemology of the body and the knowledge attached to it. As Jay David Bolter recognized in the early 1990s, we as human beings know something by virtue of our bodily and social situations and not through a process of abstract and disinterested thought (Bolter, 1996, 85). Time, place and context thus determine the so-called specific “situated knowledge”, which can never be universal (Haraway, 1988). While in the 1990s transhumanist, biotechnological processes such as genetic engineering and cloning changed the body, in the (post-)digital age a new attention to the physical is evident, which is shifted to the realm of digital image production (Kröner, 2019, 72–73). What becomes evident is that despite the temporary disappearance of the human body through its dissolution into data and bits, it returns on screen in an altered and far more flexible form than the carnal. Posthumanism, following on from the tendencies of postmodernism, then makes use of digital image genesis and manipulation to base the epistemology of the body and its situatedness on the complete rejection of humanism as a Western-determined anthropocentric unity and superiority. These aspects could be relevant precisely to the reading of Shudu. The hierarchical scaling of people according to gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, ability or age, which is characteristic of humanism, is to be fundamentally abandoned with the rejection of the onto-epistemological superiority of the human species (Ferrando, 2008, 438–439). Human interconnection, the symbiotic relationship with the non-human (Haraway, 2008; Wolfe, 2010) and the recognition of so-called “more-than-human geographies”² are at the forefront of these conceptions of the body (Ferrando, 2008, 438–439). Beyond bias, dualisms and hierarchies, a (re)figuration of the human beyond the human that recognizes nature as well as technology in unity with the human (Haraway, 1985/2016) manifests itself in Shudu as a visual representation of Donna Haraway's cyborg figure. Thus, it seems that it is precisely thanks to the digital-technological “liquidity“ of bodies, techniques and media that Haraway's vision has been fulfilled: with the help of their transnational, hybrid nature, (digital) cyborgs develop subversive strategies of “writing” as a powerful form of political struggle against oppression (Haraway, 1988; Schmitz, 2016). Such “writing” (and thus also speaking) negates the dream of a common language and seemingly homogeneous identity (Haraway, 1988; Schmitz, 2016). In this respect, Shudu, as just such a (digital) cyborg, offers the template for multiple localization –against organic holism, unambiguous classification, and antagonistic dualisms (Schmitz, 2016).³

   

  This then also includes the fact that virtual figures such as Shudu can be designed, consumed, exploited, criticized and thus also shaped on a global level in a socially, gender and culturally largely independent way⁴ – unlike the real, expensive Barbie dolls. With more images of underrepresented people in global circulation, habitual ways of seeing and thinking can be permanently changed, which could open up opportunities for marginalized groups, also from an economic perspective (Slay, 2018). With his collaborations with numerous representatives of the Black community as well as the Black staff team of hair stylists, make-up artists as well as also real Black models he stages for certain brands alongside Shudu (Square, 2018; Wilson 2021), Wilson intervenes in the working world and the economics of fashion. By consciously involving people of color in the design, styling, marketing, sales and profits of his company, his digital embodiments of elastic otherness impact the direction of a society that seeks to transcend Western-determined barriers – from a variety of perspectives and fields of action.

  In this way, the initially small companies that originated in a decidedly plural society seem to be using both simple and advanced digital technologies to draw artificial images of a reality that has always been characterized by diversity and particularisms. The fact that the artificial figure (certainly also for marketing reasons and due to the entertainment industry) enters into a targeted interweaving with the analogue world through the staging with real people in real settings, increases its credibility and thus the social, economic and political influence of digital (human) images. Thus, these creators, who have long since outgrown their infancy and cooperate with big brands, seem to initiate a new “decentralization” of society as well as of the internet because of their politically underpinned messages about inclusion, heterogeneity and equal opportunities – and regardless of their possibly commercially colored motivation. If the dissolution of boundaries between the real and the virtual, nature and the artificial, the human and the non-human (Barron, 2003), and consequently also between art and commerce, responsibility and economy, truth and lies, majority and minority, genres, techniques and media no longer seem socially or scientifically relevant, the question of categorizing people according to skin color or ethnicity will no longer have to arise.

   

  At this point, however, AI should also be taken into account as another possibility of digital “humanization”, which, in contrast to the purely external formation already described, concerns an “inner”, algorithmically controlled shaping of the “human-machine”. The juxtaposition of both types of artificial human creation becomes relevant in the question of the generation of “truth”, which algorithmically controlled AI – unlike the digital images and animations of social diversity mentioned above – in no way answers with the claim to represent the social cross-section. As a neural network, AI processes data such as words and images statically, it calculates the probabilities and says what the majority says and thinks (Simanowski, 2021). However, if the production of AI-generated “human images” is mainly based on large, Western-managed companies and the knowledge infiltrated into the machine is fed from data sets of a white, male majority belonging to the global North – without being externally curated or supervised – every minority and individuality is silenced (Simanowski, 2021): data inclusion on the one hand thus means the exclusion of diverse social structures on the other. This would, as it were, preprogram the return of the “gatekeepers” whose disempowerment through the internet was previously welcomed so enthusiastically (Simanowski, 2021). In this case, it becomes clear that technological progress does not necessarily go hand in hand with social progress (Simanowski, 2021).

  Finally, it should be noted that the technologically induced change in the production and perception of the digital (human) image challenges us to critically rethink traditional systems of order. The interweaving with digital technologies seems to make the physical body and its interior comprehensible as an open system intertwined with its environment, whereby entrenched biases and dualisms could be invalidated and a multi-perspective view of society, politics and the economy could unfold. Whether this change in perspective can lead to a more open, even tolerant society in the long term will become clear in connection with further steps in the development and the future horizon of impact of the digital image in art, society, politics and science.

   

   

  Footnotes

   

  1) Inclusive marketing aims to create a sense of community through “authentic” cultural values inherent in the customer base. In doing so, the personal perspective of the designers, including their prejudices, should be excluded and a design for the whole of society that is as broadly conceived as possible should be created (Saputo, 2019; Maier 2021).

  2) The term goes back to the findings of new cultural geography, which is based on theories of human geography. The aim of its research is to question the contemporary relationship of people to the living beings and things in their environment. Among other things, this involves the correlation between the human and the non-human, nature and culture, people and technologies. See most recently the events at the University of Bern on “More-than-human geographies”: https://www.geography.unibe.ch/forschung/sozial__und_kulturgeographie/lehre/seminar_mehr_als_menschliche_geographien/index_ger.html.

  3) Against the backdrop of Haraway's theories, this multiplicity of localizations could then be conceived with the complete abandonment of the concept of identity, if relations were created based on choice in conscious coalitions and political kinship via so-called “affinities”. See Haraway 1988; Schmitz, 2016.

  4) It is important to remember that although digital images circulate worldwide, they are not equally accessible to everyone in the context of divergent cultures, political, religious and sexual restrictions. Participation in a digital “global culture” is therefore always accompanied by exclusions, interruptions and detours.

   

   

  References

   

  • Barron, Collin (2003). A strong distinction between humans and non-humans is no longer required for research purposes: A debate between Bruno Latour and Steve Fuller. History of the Human Sciences, 16(2), 77–99.
  • Bolter, Jay David (1996). Virtuelle Realität und die Epistemologie des Körpers. Kunstforum International. Die Zukunft des Körpers I, 132(November–January), 85–89.
  • Ferrando, Francesca (2018). Transhumanism/Posthumanism. Posthuman Glossary, edited by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova, Bloomsbury Academic, 438–439.
  • Haraway, Donna J. & Wolfe, Cary (2016). A Cyborg Manifesto. Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in The Late Twentieth Century (1985). Manifestly Haraway (3–90). University of Minnesota Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b7x5f6.
  • Haraway, Donna J. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
  • Harraway, Donna J. (2008). When Species Meet. Posthumanities, Volume 3, edited by Cary Wolfe, University of Minnesota Press.
  • Jackson, Lauren Michelle (2018, May 4). Shudu Gram Is a White Man’s Digital Projection of Real-Life Black Womanhood. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/shudu-gram-is-a-white-mans-digital-projection-of-real-life-black-womanhood.
  • Khoabane, Rea (2018, May 20). Meet Shudu: the world’s first digital black supermodel. Sunday Times. https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2018-05-19-mock-princess-meet-shudu-the-digital-supermodel-turning-heads/.
  • Kröner, Magdalena (2019). Liquid Bodies. Ein subjektiver Überblick. Kunstforum International. Digital. Virtuell. Posthuman? Neue Körper in der Kunst 265(January–February), 72–115.
  • Maier, Birgit (2021, February 5). Du bist nicht alle – warum inklusives Design uns all angeht und wie es gelingen kann. OnlineMarketing.de. https://onlinemarketing.de/marketing-tools/inklusives-design-geht-alle-an-wie-es-gelingt.
  • Saputo, Sandy (2019, June). How Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty delivered „Beauty for All” – and a wake-up call to the industry. Think with Google. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/management-and-culture/diversity-and-inclusion/-fenty-beauty-inclusive-advertising/.
  • Schmitz, Sigrid (2016, July 12). Cyborgs, situiertes Wissen und das Chthulucene. Donna Haraway und dreißig Jahre politischer (Natur-)wissenschaft. Soziopolis. https://www.soziopolis.de/cyborgs-situiertes-wissen-und-das-chthulucene.html.
  • Simanowski, Roberto (2021, April 28). Identitätspolitik und künstliche Intelligenz. Es droht eine Tyrannei der Mehrheit (audio article). Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Politisches Feuilleton, ARD-Audiothek. https://podcast-mp3.dradio.de/podcast/2021/04/28/kuenstliche_intelligenz_identitaetspolitik_und_die_drk_20210428_0720_58851d76.mp3.
  • Slay, Nick (2018, April 9). Twitter Reacts to Virtual Influencers: Is Shudu Art or Appropriation? The Source. https://thesource.com/2018/04/09/twitter-reacts-to-virtual-influencers-is-shudu-art-or-appropriation/.
  • Square, Jonathan (2018, March 27). Is Instagram’s Newest Sensation Just Another Example of Cultural Appropriation? Fashionista. https://fashionista.com/2018/03/computer-generated-models-cultural-appropriation.
  • THE DIIGITALS. Shudu.Gram. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/shudu.gram/?hl=de.
  • Wilson, Cameron-James (2021, April 30). How Digital Models are Changing the Face of Fashion. Lecture at the Online Conference „The Digital Image – Social Dimensions, Political Perspectives and Economic Constraints“, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, April 28–30, 2021.
  • Wolfe, Carry (2010). What Is Posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press.

   

   

   

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  Bea Lundt

  A helplessly wretched female figure: The “Little Mermaid” in Copenhagen 

   

  Well known worldwide is the monument of the „Little Mermaid“ in Copenhagen. The figure is called  a “national symbol” for Denmark and a “landmark” for Northern Europe. The bronze sculpture of 125 cm height was constructed by Edward Eriksen in 1913. It shows a naked young woman, her feet like the tail of a fish. The intention of the sculptor was to honour and remember Hans-Christian Andersen (1805-1875), the Danish author of the story „Den lille Havfrue“ (The little mermaid). The place which had been chosen for erecting the monument is a rock in the water near the open sea; the figure turns her face to the shore of the Danish capital Copenhagen.

   

  

   

  "Little mermaid"  by Edward Eriksen 1913, 125 cm, Copenhagen harbour,
  https://dreamguides.edreams.de/daenemark/kopenhagen/die-kleine-meerjungfrau

   

  With this installation the country accentuates its identity of being involved in the element water and its representation in literature and culture. The famous piece of art transports different messages and reactions, has its own life and a specific history.

   

  The narrative behind this figure, a fairy-tale for children, is well-known in Europe: A young mermaid wants to get into contact with a prince she loves. But he never recognizes her and marries a noble woman. The mermaid dissolves to foam, which flows back in the ocean. But also she is transformed to stay as a ghost in the air, where she can be part of earthly life and earn an immortal soul.

   

  As a being of the nature the mermaid is part of the “other” of civilization and as subordinated to human and especially masculine beings. The title marks her to be “little”, not having a name and individuality. She did not receive any respect and interest, not even for her female beauty. By this ignorance she is killed, with no traces of her life. The story shows the most helplessly wretched female figure in literature we can imagine.

   

  Within a memory-culture the monument might help a region of seafarers to feel superior over the sea and the beings involved with this element. Denmark was a colonial power. From overseas came goods and wealth on trading-ships. People from West Africa were deported as slaves to the Danish colonies Carribean Islands, where they had to grow sugarcane. The Molasses, the essence of this plant, was brought to Northern Europe, where Rum was made from it, the central product which made towns very prosperous. In visualizing a sentimental mythical story from the period Biedermeier the monument helps to divert from this context or even to suppress it. But the symbolic meaning might also be an accusation against (male) neglection of the nature and a warning for girls to hope to win the dream prince. It also can be seen as a protest against monarchy, aristocratic lifestyle and the glorified royal history of the country.

   

  Performance and public reactions

   

  Many tourists visit the monument every day and there are activities and actions around it. It stimulates the wish of giving the mermaid the attention she did not get in the story, as a symbolic compensation. There are also anonymous acts of aggression and destruction against the statue (see examples). Feminist groups protest against the offer of a voyeuristic view on a naked woman in this exposed location, this is also done by conservative circles in a prudish mentality. The statue also provoked campaigns of environmentalists who added her slogans demanding protection of other creatures being under control of human power like the whales for example.

   

  An independent queen in Premodern Times: Melusine

   

  The fairytale of Andersen is a modern adaptation of older stories and there are lots of distinctions within the development of this symbolic figure. Very common throughout several European languages is a narration about a female figure with the name Melusine, which is derived from the french word “mere” (mother) of the Lusignans, an influencial  family, living in France and in Cyprus, from where the legend might have reached Africa. In the shape of a woman she marries a nobleman and rules over the country, building it up in an innovative way. When her husband discovers her in the bathroom being half a dragon, she flies away. In the official belief she is said to be a dangerous demon with no soul, destroying Christian families. But in aristocratic traditions the mermaid is understood as the ancestress of their gender and put in their heraldry. In illustrations in books she is depicted as a courtly lady with half the body of a fish, standing in a basin; the destructive element of water being abolished. She is not a victim, but the active part in the plot; when she leaves, her big family suffers and the country loses its strong ruler with her outstanding creativity.

   

  The twofold character of Melusine represents very well the beginnings of noble families: Polygamic life was common, and  when the institution of the Christian marriage was imposed, one of the spouses of a ruler needed to be sent away. The element water might hint at the origin of the mistress from a village near the river outside the castle, which is on top of a hill. In popular narrations she was given an aura of mystery, having the body of a dangerous monster.

   

   
                    

  Melusine. The mermaid as a court lady and the ancestress of noble families (woodcut and illustration of a manuscript 15th century), Thüring von Ringoltingen: “Melusine”. In der Fassung des Buchs der Liebe  (1587), hg. Hans-Gert Roloff, Reclam Verlag Stuttgart1991, S. 3.
   

   

   

  She is discovered having half a fish-body (book illustration 15th century), Thüring von Ringoltingen: „Melusine“ First printing Basel: Richel, around 1473/74. digit. ULB Darmstadt urn:nbn:de:tuda-tudigit-35087

   

  

   

  She flies away (book illustration), from "der Seelen Wurzgarten“. St. Peter pap. 23, Coburg bei Schwäbisch Hall 1467 (digitized by the ‘Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe’, 65v.)

  
   

  The modern tale of a beauty killing her lover: Undine

   

  With the name “Undine” (lat. “unda”: wave) in Romanticism the mermaid-figure develops vampiric qualities, killing her lover by a kiss when he marries another woman.

  This motif inspired many paintings. They channel phantasies and visions about the chances and problems of a partnership between persons from different origin and about death as the consequence of an unsuccessful encounter. How can strange-looking persons, which come from or over the sea, be integrated?

   

  

   

  Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777 – 1843), novel, 1814, published by Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2015, Painting by John William Waterhouse 1872.

   

   

  Conclusion

   

  Premodern times reflect the mermaid mainly as bringing fertility from nature to mankind, hoping to gain a soul through marriage with a human being. There are systematic changes to this story during modernity, which might result from the background of colonialism as absorption and subjugation of everything  different and “strange”. Men are longing for its attractiviness, but also fearing that this inclusion of a natural being might cause protest and fury. The European tradition can be said to be a parable about migration and exchange between different worlds, the mermaid being a symbol-figure for the futile attempt of colonizing the other.

   

  The task of a transcultural comparison: Mami Wata

   

  In Ghana I learned about Mami Wata, a traditional African figure, the patron of fishermen. In Quidah (Benin) I saw her as a goddess of the python, the holy snake. She has her own shrine where specifically educated priests pay tribute to her to keep her merciful. The name is interpreted to be a pidgin-version of „Mother of the water“. Scholars from Europe assumed that Melusine was carried on ships' bows in the 15. century from Europe to the West-African coast, where her narrative interlaced with local narrations with their own long tradition of water-goddesses. But: It might also be the other way round, from West-Africa to Europe, probably on the trade-roads through the Sahara. There, the legend emerged much earlier and arrived in Europe as early as the 12^th century, when the mermaid-stories began to gain popularity. How is a figure transformed when it is transferred to a region with such different history and traditions?

   

  

   

  Temple of the Python, “Holy Forest”, Quidah (Benin) 2015  Foto: Nina Paarmann

   

  

   

  Fishing boat in Winneba (Ghana) 2012, Foto: Nina Paarmann

   

  

   

  Quidah (Benin) 2015: “Slave Road”, Text: “memorial for the ‘tree of forgetting’ which had to be orbited, nine times by the male and seven times by the female slaves”, Foto: Nina Paarmann

   

   

   

   

  References

  • Hans-Christian Andersen: „Den lille havfrue“ (The little Mermaid) fairytale, in: Sämtliche Märchen 1-2, München 1974 (hg. Nielsen, E.).
  • Bea Lundt: Melusine und Merlin im Mittelalter. Modelle und Entwürfe weiblicher Existenz im Beziehungsdiskurs der Geschlechter. Ein Beitrag zur Historischen Erzählforschung. (Diss. 1990), Fink-Verlag München 1991.
  • Bea Lundt: Wassergeister als universales Motiv. Paracelsus’ Deutung der Nymphengestalt und die Figur Mami Wata in Afrika. In: Nova Acta Paracelsica. Beiträge zur Paracelsus-Forschung (NF 28). Hg. Pia Holenstein Weidmann. Bern u.a. 2018, S. 9-40

   

   

  Edited by Kelly Thompson.

   

   

  published February 2020

   

   

  

  Esther Kibuka-Sebitosi

  Mermaids at the East African coast

  The Mermaid in Copenhagen reminded me of the stories I heard when I visited the coastal town of Mombasa, East African coast in Kenya. This was back in the University days when   I accompanied my friend Salome to visit her mother in Mombasa. We travelled by bus all the way from Kampala through Nairobi to Mombasa, a long journey of over 24 hrs. We landed at “Mwembe Tayari” Kiswahili translation “ripe mangoes”- this market is a vibrant place with all sorts of mangoes to eat. It was a market of all diverse cultures:  Arabic, Swahili, Bantu and the main language was Kiswahili- a mixture of Arabic and Local Bantu languages. The myths, stories and folklore are all mixed taking origins from Arabic and African descent.

  
  

  Back to the Mermaid stories, once upon a time, a man went to have a drink at one of the Mombasa bars. He drank and went home with a woman. Before they slept, the mermaid wangled her fins to switch off the lights. He ran out of the house and told the whole town up to Malindi, a faraway town.

   

  Mermaids are both a mystery and envy because they are told to be very beautiful women who come, seduce men, and then disappear in the night. Another story was that the mermaids were “Genie” or ghosts, which are really demons of the sea.  When my Pastor friend, the late Lule went to preach the gospel in Mombasa, he had to cast out many. He told me that one night he slept only to be woken up a mermaid to command him to go and leave town. He just prayed in the name of Jesus and she left without a trace in a closed door. He said, when you see one, you need to do some spiritual warfare; use the Name of Jesus and the Blood of Jesus as weapons of mass destruction.

   

  Stories of mermaids are varied but when told by a Swahili woman; you need to sleep over, as they never end. You need to have some “mandazi” (sweet like a doughnut) and African Tea with Masala (spices) as you listen to these rich African tales. Will keep you posted when I visit again.

   

   

  References

  • http://blog.swaliafrica.com/mami-wata-the-mermaids-in-african-mythology/2/
  • Dona Fish, Angola, ca. 1950

   

   

  published February 2020

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• 

  Elfriede Dreyer

  Over the last three-and-a-half centuries, South Africa has experienced volatile and turbulent histories of a colonial, postcolonial and global kind. These brought on substantial nomadic movement of people, leading to political and social displacement, and hybrid identities. Since 1652, as a multifariously colonised country South Africa has shown cultural patterns of movement in and out of the country, and from place to place. The country is extraordinarily rich in mineral resources and gold, which has brought about massive wealth, but also instability. Johannesburg was established in 1886, due to the so-called gold rush, with fortune seekers and diggers flooding from all over the world to the country. Since then, the gold mines have attracted an influx of locals as workers, which contributed to much nomadism, but ironically – especially since 1948 during apartheid – such mine workers were allowed to work underground but once above ground they had to return to townships outside the large cities. During apartheid, non-whites or ‘people of colour’ were removed from the city and forcibly established in townships outside the city; they were only allowed as workers into the city; and had to carry passbooks (identity documents) on them all the time.

   

  Such nomadic identity as a result of marginalisation and displacement is still presiding, but for different reasons since 994 and the end of apartheid. From this time onwards there has been a immense influx of people from all over the African continent to South Africa in search of greener pastures. Whereas during apartheid many intellectuals and people ‘of colour’ emigrated from the country, over the past two decades there has been an outflux of people due to a strong degree of political uncertainty and actions of political redress in the post-apartheid constitution, or to convicted beliefs of ‘not belonging’ to the new political dispensation.

   

  Senzeni Marasela’s series of works entitled Waiting for Gebane (2015-2016) entails a continuation of her previous work, such as the embroidery series Theodorah in Johannesburg (2006) and Sarah, Senzeni and Theodorah come to Joburg (2011). In the latter works she explored her relationship with Johannesburg as city and experiences her mother had when she first arrived there. She used embroidery as technique and thread due to its associations of fragility, and conceptually she considered the issue of black women in migration to the cities. Theodorah was depicted as travelling to the city with the aim to finding out exactly what it is that has made many people disappear into Johannesburg. She is uncertain of what she is actually looking for. In the 2014 exhibition catalogue for Nomad bodies at the Wintertuin gallery of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (curator: Elfriede Dreyer), Marasela stated that “I continuously return to the city, looking and relooking as it undergoes massive transformation. Having grown up in a catholic environment, penance informs a great deal of methods which are labour intensive. The city of gold is important as a transitory space: people go through the city, they come to the city and many dream of this city. There is something impermanent about this city, and it is precisely at this point that I began to write my own histories. The social climate of the city has never been favourable to the women that enter it. It is deliberate that I leave the city arid, without indications of lived experiences, as I seek to build the Johannesburg I can safely occupy.”

   

  However, in Sarah, Senzeni and Theodorah come to Joburg the artist includes herself and Sarah Baartman also as nomads or pilgrims in the city. The three women’s plights are fundamentally different – Theodorah is on ajourney looking for her lost son Gebane; Senzeni is on her journey finding her foothold as individual, and colonial Sarah was displaced to Europe from the Eastern Cape– but they are one in their search for a place, recognition and restitution. They are each other’s doppelganger in their journey through the city of Johannesburg which forms the backdrop to the works. The metaphor of the rhizome is of particular interest to an engagement with nomadic identity in the context of a continent such as Africa. Already in 1987 Deleuze and Guattari (1987:7). coined the idea of rhizomatic being, stating that the “rhizome itself assumes many diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion in bulbs and tubers”. Living on a vast continent, Africans are accustomed to long journeys; however, poverty, violence, civil wars, imperial infiltrations and oppression have resulted in a generalised nomadic condition where people are constantly moving and travelling in the search for a better life and even survival. However, in a wider sense, globally, Rosi Braidotti (2011:3) states that the nomadic predicament and its multiple contradictions have come to age in the third millennium after years of debate on the “’nonunitary’ – split, in process, knotted, rhizomatic, transitional, nomadic – so that fragmentation, complexity and multiplicity have become everyday terms in critical theory.” Braidotti has been engaged since the 1990s with the question as to what the political and ethical conditions of nomadic subjectivity are, grounded in a “politically invested cartography of the present condition of mobility in a globalized world” (Braidotti 2011:4).

   

  Zygmunt Bauman (in Hall & Du Gay 1996:19) views the ontologies of nomadic identity as becoming critical when there is uncertainty as to where one belongs, a view that is crucially relevant to emerging urbanising African identity. `the figure of Theodorah can be aligned with the idea of the flâneur, which Bauman appropriates in his presentation of the stereotype of the pilgrim who as a stroller is on a teleological journey – ordered, determined and predictable (Bauman in Hall & Du Gay 1996:21). Comparing the contemporary world to a desert through its fragmentation, Bauman views it as being inhospitable to the notion of the pilgrim, being unable to leave a footprint in the sand. The forward march of the pilgrim (Theodorah) is equally compromised and in the context of the wind effacing footprints (of Gebane) and the rhythmical similarity of the desert environment, the pilgrim goes in circles (Bauman in Hall & Du Gay 1996:23). “The overall result is the fragmentation of time in episodes, each one cut from its past and from its future, each one self-enclosed and self-contained. Time is no longer a river, but a collection of ponds and pools” (Bauman in Hall & Du Gay 1996:25).

   

  As in these afore-mentioned works, in the series Waiting for Gebane the artist’s mother is depicted as going from her rural environment to the ‘big city’, Johannesburg, in a search for her son Gebane who left for the city and never returned. She becomes a nomad in her searching ritual, but it is a dystopian journey, providing no teleological “good ending” and leading nowhere, since she cannot find him. The works depict a potent image of Africans searching for a better life elsewhere, but simultaneously failing in finding answers to their economic and other dilemmas. Waiting for Gebane explores cultural and artistic mappings of the social and political power geographies and complexities that dominate cities. Of pertinent interest here is how people’s decolonial transition from rural to urban contexts have been voiced, claimed, renegotiated and contested, especially in the context of capital cities as locations where there is a conflation of global and local influences. Mendieta (2001:15, 23) argues that cities have become the “vortex of the convergence of the processes of globalization and localization … [and] epitomes of glocalization, to use Robertson’s language (1994)”; and that the “city is the site at which the forces of the local and the global meet: the site where the forces of transnational, finance capital, and the local labour markets and national infra-structures enter into conflict and contestation over the city.”

   

  In Marasela’s work, contemporary African identity is characterised by particular cultural histories, as well as by identifiable patterns of transitivity and how people construct their identities psycho-geographically. Dispossession of the embodied and embedded self is articulated so that the city and placelessness become sides of the same coin (Braidotti 2011:6). Braidotti (2011:7) argues that “The contrast between an ideology of free mobility and the reality of disposable others brings out the schizophrenic character of advanced capitalism”, which is nowhere more visible than in the political and social extremities in South Africa. Marasela’s work expresses the idea that meaning is created through the crossing of space and distance between bodies, or as Soja (1989:133) argues, “To be human is not only to create distances but to attempt to cross them, to transform primal distance through intentionality, emotion, involvement, attachment.”

   

  New decolonised Identities emerge through movement through in the world and interfaces with alterity. Often, it is a sense of alterity or the attraction to the exotic other that produces nomadism. Waiting for Gebane thus presents the ambivalent Baumanian idea of the pilgrim-tourist who keeps going in circles, driven by a non-teleological sense of survival and looking for a better life, which might not lead to a ‘good ending’. Nomadic identity is essentially rhizomatic here, and in South Africa – also in an amplified sense on the African continent – the drive to belong and the utopian quest for a better life have resulted in identity being redefined, renegotiated, rerooted and sprouting in many directions.

   

  About Senzeni Marasela

   

  Senzeni Marasela is a female South African artist of Zulu origin, born in Thokoza, KwaZulu Natal in 1977. She is currently completing a MA degree in Art History from Wits University (SA); she has exhibited widely in the national and international contexts; and she has been awarded several grants and residencies, for example from Devon Arts Residency (Scotland) The Ampersand Foundation and Axis Gallery in New York; The Thami Mnyele Foundation in Amsterdam; and the Kokkola Art Academy in Vasa. Her artist website is found at http://www.senzenimarasela.com.

   

   

   

  References

  • Bauman, Z. ‘From pilgrim to tourist – or a short history of identity’. In Hall, S and Du Gay, P (eds). 1996. Questions of cultural identity. London/New Delhi/Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

  • Braidotti, R. 2011. Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. Second edition. Gender and culture: A series of Columbia University Press. New York: University of Columbia Press.
  • Deleuze, G & Guattari, F. 1987 [1980, French original]. A thousand plateaus. New York: University of Minnesota.
  • Hall, S and Du Gay, P (eds). 1996. Questions of cultural identity. London/New Delhi/Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
  • Mendieta, E. 2001. Invisible cities: a phenomenology of globalization from below. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action 5(1):7–26.
  • Soja, E. 1989. Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory. New York/London: Verso.

   

   

  published February 2020

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• 

  Bernadette Van Haute

  Lawrence Lemaoana’s work, entitled SILENCE … FALLS (2017) consists of Kanga fabric with cotton embroidery, measuring 155 x 115 cm. Lemaoana is a South African black male, born in Johannesburg in 1982, who lives and works in Johannesburg. The work serves as an example of the ways in which young black artists in South Africa aim to express a specific South African identity which appeals to the global art world. 

   

  The use of Kanga fabric as medium is in itself very significant. Lemaoana states that: "Kanga fabrics [...] are used extensively in my work. Manufactured in the East, and brought to South Africa to be sold in markets and bazaars, the journey of the fabrics speaks of the idiosyncrasies and trade imbalances of globalisation. The textiles themselves though have a wholly different life in South Africa – they are regarded as significant markers of spiritual healing, imbued with great religious and spiritual power, used by diviners and fortune-tellers." (Afronova)

   

  The Kanga cloth is “used specifically in Emandzawe rituals, both as clothing for the sangoma [diviner] performing the ritual and as cloth on the shrine inside the shrine room in which the ritual takes place” (von Veh, 2017, pp. 13-14). The use of this fabric thus establishes Lemaoana’s identification with both global culture and black African culture which does not belong to a mythical past but is still very much alive today. His own familiarity with the sangoma becomes clear when he maintains that the ambiguity of the traditional healer’s utterings parallels that of headlines in the news media. He also exploits the deeper meaning embedded in the three colours white, red and black to heighten the impact of his highly topical messages.

   

  Lemaoana’s work is inspired by current socio-political events and the way in which they are reported in the local media. The composition Silence Falls evokes the #RhodesMustFall movement which began in 2015. This demonstrates the artist’s concern with the plight of the South African youth and his identity as an artist born in the 1980s – the so-called ‘born-frees’ who did not actually experience the ‘struggle’. The works of this generation of artists are described as “symptomatic of the new identity issues of the post-apartheid era. This young generation is appropriating a history that it believes has been confiscated and twisted in order to develop an alternative that takes into account its own subjective experience. Conscious of their responsibilities, these artists are helping to formulate and affirm a specific South African identity” (Pagé and Scherf, 2017, p. 8).  

   

  Lemaoana expresses his concern with socio-political issues through a critical engagement with mass media in South Africa. He is particularly concerned by the ability of the local media to shape social consciousness. By isolating news headlines and appropriating political slogans in his very own cynical way he “turns didactic and propagandistic tools on their head” (Afronova). As Lepage (2017, p. 117) states, Lemaoana uses the power of “words as favoured instruments in the political struggle”.

   

  The importance of Lemaoana’s work is vested in his participation in the Fondation Louis Vuitton exhibition in Paris in 2017. The exhibition was divided in three parts; the first one was entitled Being there: South Africa, a contemporary scene and aimed to show South African vitality through the works of 16 artists. In the accompanying catalogue the curators Suzanne Pagé and Angeline Scherf (2017, p. 8) explained that their choice of artists was “based primarily on the action of the artists themselves, on their engagement with the current economic and social institutions, their awareness and conviction that they can act and play a role: BEING THERE”.

   

  Interestingly the curators also comment on the fact that this younger generation of artists, in the context of ongoing economic and social divisions more than two decades after the end of Apartheid, sees it as its mission to transform “disenchantment into the energy for renewal” (Pagé and Scherf, 2017, p. 8). Achille Mbembe (2017, p. 16) elaborates on the current tensions in South African politics and culture which have led to a stalemate. In a society where consumption has become the quintessential state of being, the visual arts are in crisis, characterised by radical fragmentation and dispersion of reality (Mbembe 2017, pp. 23-24). “What is needed in contemporary South African arts”, writes Mbembe (2017, p. 24), “are concepts with which to seek out the real … . This will not happen without a new collective imagination that will help to facilitate the passage from the past and present to the future”.

   

  This is what Lemaoana has achieved in his art. His participation in the show confirms his status as a contemporary South African artist who has managed to decolonise his art by “seeking out the real” and grounding it in a local or national context. Furthermore, in Lemaoana’s works there is no room for, what Mbembe (2017, p. 25) calls, “tropes of pain and suffering” or the injuries inflicted “by the forces of racism and patriarchy” – tropes that are the characteristic traps of postcolonial discourse. His art is decolonised in the sense that all the resources of cultural and artistic modernity – both in terms of medium and narrative – have been mobilised in order to render itself more relevant to a modern Africa and a global humanity (Ekpo, 2017, p. 20).

   

   

  References

  • Afronova. http://www.afronova.com/artists/lawrence-lemaoana-2/ (accessed on September 19, 2017).
  • Ekpo, D. (2017). Manifesto for a Post-African art. Unpublished keynote address presented at the SAVAH Conference, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa, September 21 – 23, 2017.
  • Lepage, A. (2017). Lawrence Lemaoana. In S. Pagé & A. Scherf (Eds.), Being there: South Africa, a contemporary scene (pp. 116-21). Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton and Editions Dilecta.
  • Mbembe, A. (2017). Difference and repetition. Reflections on South Africa today. In S. Pagé & A. Scherf (Eds.), Being there: South Africa, a contemporary scene (pp. 15-25). Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton and Editions Dilecta.
  • Pagé, S. & Scherf, A. (Eds.). (2017). Being there: South Africa, a contemporary scene. Exhibition catalogue. Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton and Editions Dilecta.
  • von Veh, K. (2017). Textual Textiles: Gender and Political Parodies in the Work of Lawrence Lemaoana, TEXTILE,1-19. doi: 10.1080/14759756.2017.1337381 (Accessed September 5, 2017).

   

   

  published March 2020

   

   

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• 

  Patrique deGraft-Yankson

  The Rising Sea by El Anatsui is a naturalistic presentation of an ocean in turbulence, which elicit attention through both grotesquery and finesse. The work, which covers an area of about 14,38 by 6,90 meters, is made up of several pieces of flattened aluminum bottle tops stitched together with copper wires into a massive sheet of grey wall overlay.

   

  To achieve the intended illusion, the artist manipulated portions of the metal fabric into large series of ridges of different sizes that combine into an irregular rhythm randomly positioned across the surface of the sheet to simulate sea waves. Beyond supporting the movements of the sea waves, the rhythm created by the raised portions of the work also provides narrow range of values that effectively bring out the three-dimensionality of the work and transforms the otherwise flat sheet into an illusionistic volume. 

   

  Like the texture of oil paints in Van Gogh’s Starry Night, the texture of the stitched pieces of metals sheets introduce energy into the work, bringing out the fluidity of the sea and the potency of the mesmeric sea waves. Indeed, improper disposal of those materials used (and many others) is causing a lot of nuisance in his home country and other parts around the globe, with the sea being the most affected. Therefore, right from the materials used to its marvelous finishing, it is not difficult to discern a blend of severe censuring and admonition in the voice of the artist. The sea is, in the way presented, depicted as rising against improper treatment; and El, by the pains taken to stitch every piece of material together, seems to emphasize the need to make it our business to salvage the sea from improper handling.

   

  The sea, which has served as an important source of livelihood for Ghanaians over the centuries invokes multidimensional viewpoints and draws out divergent responses and reactions depending on its relationship with the people. Among the coastal dwellers (and indeed a very great population of Ghanaians), the sea is considered an important resource for commercial activities, an arena for entertainment and recreation and grounds for spiritual exploits and worship.

   

  He himself being born in the coastal town of Anyako in the Volta Region of Ghana, El seems to know so much about the sea. Growing up, he most likely experienced the sea being perceived, treated and utilized in many different ways. Besides its major use for commercial activities and other useful ventures, he might have listened to many stories about the sea as a god (with other inhabitants), as a provider and as a friend. He might have learnt about how the sea and her inhabitants contribute to the fortunes of the people. He might have witnessed how people got healed as they bathed in the sea, or had their fortunes turned around as they threw some coins in the ocean and made their requests known to the sea.

   

  Beyond this, he might have also been warned about the consequences of flouting the taboos and other prohibitions that regulate the “use” of the sea, including forbiddance from desecrating the sea with unhealthy practices such as defecating in the sea, throwing filth into the sea or wearing sandals or shoes in the sea and the need to observe the tabooed fishing days, and so on. Besides, another important thing which Ghanaian coastal dwellers take very seriously is the need to adhere to physical signs and conditions of the sea, which have various local interpretations and implications. For instance, there are periods when the sea is considered as “full”, during which times the sea waves “rise” and become more intense and turbulent. Fisher folks are supposed to take a rest from “climbing the sea” (as they say in the local parlance) as the sea is likely to be unfriendly, and therefore unconducive for fishing.

   

  Factors that cause the “rising” of the sea may not be ordinarily known. However, according to coastal dwellers, there is always something sinister about a rising sea – either somebody got drowned, or someone or a group of persons might have violated the rules of the sea god – and what motivated El in his presentation of the Rising sea might not be any different from what are traditionally believed. Probably the sea is fed up with deliberate dumping of wastes and toxic materials into her bowels. Therefore, she must rise!

   

  But the “full” or “rising” sea is not as unfriendly as it sounds. Though it prevents fishing activities, which might be one way of punishing the people for disrespecting her, it also affords the people the opportunity to dry up their canoes, mend their nets and relax in the beautiful view of the sea along the coast. The occasions of the rising sea also witness other people who just move along the shores to observe the large waves that gather in the deep ocean, roll angrily towards the shoreline and dissolve tumultuously at the shore in a creamy white lather. The views at the seashore during these periods are nothing short of aesthetical experience that is shared by different kinds of observers with different perceptions, questioning, discussing, enjoying.

  In so many ways therefore, the spectacle of observers in front of El Anatsui’s gigantic reconstruction of the Rising Sea gives so much semblance to the natural phenomenon, and this is a fundamental underpinning to the success of El’s work.

   

  Culturally, the Rising Sea could be perceived as an allusion to the dynamisms in life, which sometimes rise against human tendencies and restrict mundane behavior, at the same time ensuring regularization of natural behaviors. What is important is to identify what is causing what, and how to seek for the right solutions.

   

  For it to be presented as an aesthetic piece of work, El is probably saying that, the Rising is Sea is frightening; it is confusing; it is chaotic. But she is still beautiful, because in the right time, when given the right treatment, she will calm down so we have nothing to fear. She is still our god, our friend, our provider and our protector.

   

   

  published February 2020

  

  Ernst Wagner

  El Anatsui (* 1944) created 'Rising Sea' 2019 specifically for a particular wall in a comprehensive solo exhibition of his oeuvre entitled “Triumphant Scale” at the ‘Haus der Kunst’ in Munich. Like many of his other works, “Rising Sea” is a large-scale piece comprised of thousands of flattened liquor bottle caps (extrapolated approx. 190.000) that have been tied together with copper wire. It hangs like a large tapestry from ceiling to floor and though it looks solid, it is flexible and has a seemingly textile structure. The effect is monumental and magnificent; it impresses by the sheer size as well as by the sensual materiality of the almost infinite number of small, shimmering pieces of tinplate.

   

  To see the composition we need to view the work from a distance. The sculpture is divided into three starkly contrasting horizontal zones. A vibrantly colored strip runs along the bottom. It appears fragile and becomes thinner and interrupted as it runs toward the lower right corner. The broad, massive, monochrome grey zone in the middle falls with heavy folds. The third zone at the top is a narrow, shiny, silver and smoother appearing plane that rises from its lower edge on the left in a sharp line upwards to the right, like a ‘Silberstreif’ (i.e. glimmer of hope).

   

  Nearing the work, we discover bright flecks of color that emerge out of the shimmering mother-of-pearl gray middle zone. While some of the flecks appear to build concrete figurations others seem to be randomly dispersed. In the lower right corner small speckles of color gravitate toward and buzz around a concentrated cluster of speckles. We are enticed to move closer and to discover more details. Individual bottle tops become recognizable out of a speckled ‘field of pixels' or 'threads in the fabric’. One recognizes and reads the labels "Turn to open" and the names of African high-proof alcoholic beverages that are popular in Ghana or Nigeria where El Anatsui lives and works (KP Beverages, Bacco , etc.)

   

  As with an impressionist painting, this work enables and requires two different viewing positions: close up and from a distance. Both perspectives tell different stories. In contrast to impressionism, El Anatsui’s stories address political and social issues of highest relevance. From a distance, the rising water level caused by global warming is addressed, to which the title of the work 'Rising Sea' refers. “Reading” from left to right, sculptural folds in the large gray middle area remind us of mighty waves that are in the process of destroying the narrow, speckled strip on the floor that we may associate with human dwellings and their fragile situation. The ‘Silberstreif’ is dwindling and so is hope. Obviously, this meaning is addressed directly and in all clarity.

   

  The inscriptions on the bottle tops tell another story, the story of alcohol and slave trade during European colonialism in West Africa. Thousands of Africans were sold and taken across the Atlantic in ships to cut sugar cane in the Caribbean plantations to make rum. The rum was shipped to England and then later sold to Africa. Rum with its high alcohol content became another means of dominating an already exploited people. In the course of time, West Africans commonly used rum and other forms of alcohol for libations. However, El Anatsui only uses discarded bottle caps from liquor made in Africa today.

   

  In turn, the process of 'sewing' the individual metal pieces together is an important, additional cultural-historical referral to El Anatsui’s roots in West Africa where there is a long tradition of weaving colorful textiles.

  The close-up view of “Rising Sea” thus speaks of the past in West-Africa. Whereby the view from the distance, speaks of the future, a future that directly and indirectly affects the world globally. The narrative strands are connected by the idea of upcycling: discarded bottle caps become art, the cheapest material becomes sumptuous beauty, the past becomes present and future, regional colonialism becomes the narrative of a global threat.

   

  It is important to remember that it is a black artist from Ghana exhibiting this threatening beauty in a space that was built in Munich to serve National Socialist racism. The title of the exhibition 'Triumphant Scale' alludes directly to this context, which Okwui Enwezor, the initiator of the exhibition, was certainly aware of.  The Nazi regime, a regime without scale, built the Haus der Kunst, a building that broke all scales.  El Anatsiu’s magnificent, grand scale triumphs over the excessive Nazi scale.

   

  Challenging the Western concept of art

  As an artist, El Anatsui is a representative of the Global South as well as of global art. He displays past and present catastrophes in decorative splendor.  We can understand this message through classical analysis and interpretation on the base of the iconography of material and motifs. This system of decoding is familiar to us and confirms our Western expectations of a work of art. However, the simple explicitness of the content of El Anatsui’s work, poses a challenge to Western expectations of open, complex, self-contradicting art.

   

  According to the latent notion of the community of art experts, if there is a clear content in art it should be as ironic, witty or distanced as possible. Hence, the intrinsic value of art (l'art pour l'art) eludes ideological appropriation and art gives no instructions for action. None of these tenets of Western art is is evident in Anatsui’s work. "Turn to open” with an arrow pointing up or down is the instruction repeated thousands of times in the middle section of “Rising Sea”. The sentence can be read as a directive for us to act on the challenges of our time.

   

  El Anatsui thus negates the ‘prohibition' of unequivocal, direct symbolism and narration in the Western concept of art and its associated prohibition of politics and agitation. As a global artist, he challenges this concept. In addition, it is interesting to note that El Anatsui, unlike most Western artists, often leaves the responsibility of installing his work in exhibitions to the respective curators. In every exhibition, the same works look a little different, or quite different: folds will fall differently, pieces will be grouped differently and work that has been previously exhibited hanging on the wall may even be presented lying on the floor. With this artistic strategy, he formulates an unmistakable position from the Global South. Thus Western dominance loses its normative power in art and culture in general. The world becomes more diverse and polycentric.

   

  Learn more about El Anatsui.

   

   

  published February 2020

  

  ISB_Team

  Two perspectives on one work of art
  

  In 2019, a large solo exhibition of the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, initiated by Okwui Enwezor, took place at Munich's Haus der Kunst. It was the occasion for Patrique deGraft-Yankson and Ernst Wagner to write together about one of the works there. deGraft-Yankson and Ernst Wagner agreed on a parallel writing process in order to minimise any mutual influence of their respective approaches. Thus, they knew nothing of each other's point of view. The resulting texts can be read above.

   

  The result of this exercise is surprising and fascinating. In some aspects, of course, the interpretations of the work coincided, but in others they differed considerably. What they had in common, for example, was the appreciation of the production process and the impressive effect of material, size and surfaces. Also that the issue of environmental pollution plays a central role in the interpretation of Rising Sea. But it was precisely here that the first differences, even mutually exclusive approaches, emerged: for example, when deGraft-Yankson referred to the sea as a deity, a deity that can sometimes be friendly, but also unfriendly. Understood in this way, the sea in its immediate effect is simultaneously frightening and beautiful, it threatens and at the same time invites aesthetic enjoyment.

   

  Ernst Wagner could easily relate this aspect to the Western aesthetic of the sublime, however, the difference becomes quite clear when we look at the underlying concept of what an art work is. deGraft-Yankson's text takes the work of art as its point of departure, but it always speaks of the sea itself, while Ernst Wagner always speaks of the work - and not of the sea. This different focus marks a fascinating difference: deGraft-Yankson is concerned with the sea, which he brings to us through his discussion, while Ernst Wagner is concerned with a work of art that simply has the sea as its subject. For deGraft-Yankson, the sea is "in" the work, it is really present. For Ernst Wagner, the sea is a represented motif, it lies "behind" the work, so to speak. It serves as a theme or a point of reference.

   

  This has consequences for the methodology: while Ernst Wagner delivers an analysis of form, deGraft-Yankson focuses on contextualising the art work; he describes the significance of the sea for the people on the Ghanaian coast today. This difference is probably also due to the different perceptions of what the sea itself is: in his text, deGraft-Yankson speaks of the sea as an independent, souled entity, an acting being or a god that enters into a relationship with people. For Ernst Wagner, the sea - as part of the ecosystem - is also in relationship with humans, but he does not ascribe an independent will to it.

   

  These different understandings of the relationship between human beings and the world are then echoed in an obviously equally different concept of what art or an art work is. In deGraft-Yankson's text, the work of art, like the sea itself, is charged with energy. The sea appears, as it were in the work, indeed it is present there. In the work, then, the sea materialises as something we perceive directly. In this sense, the work and the sea appeal to us to "preserve it from improper treatment [...] or it will be desecrated."

   

  This approach of deGraft-Yankson, in which everything interpenetrates, is contrasted with Ernst Wagner's approach, which analytically separates everything: proximity and distance, splendour to be enjoyed and admonition to be taken seriously, discourse on colonialism and ecology, work and motif, art system and ecology, art system and colonialism, and so on. In the end, Ernst Wagner achieves a synthesis, but it only works on a meta-level by addressing the irritation of the Western concept of art through Anatsui's work. An irritation that dissolves or at least relativises the fundamental separation in Western understanding of viewer and object, of sign (the concrete work) and signified (the rising sea), of spirituality and reality, of art and ethics.

   

   

  Annette Schemmel, then member of the ISB group, wrote to the the authors in 2020:

  "Dear Patrique, dear Ernst,

   

  Your texts are a great read and so complementary! For me, writing from Munich, the aspects raised by Patrique have opened up an entirely new reading of this marvellous piece of art, which I was lucky to contemplate at the exhibition of Haus der Kunst. What you're telling about Ghanaians' relation to the sea is unveiling and beautiful, thank you for unfolding these narratives here! Thank you all the more for sharing a piece of local wisdom (how the sea can react angrily) and linking these narratives to the global challenge of saving the sea, a challenge with impacts on localities all over. On another note, the evocation of "Starry Night" caught my eye at once and does make a lot of sense to me. I will be using it in my art classes, if you don't mind.

  
  Ernst's reading of the piece is much more familiar to me, obviously. He is telling about the context of the exhibition on site in Munich, a context that is so highly charged! When exhibited at this specific museum, Anatsui's work can't but comment on our German history, laughing at its racism by means of its "immoderate" dimensions and calling for a long-due revision of our role in colonialism and in exploitative global circuits of goods like alcohol. It is for this potential of speaking to a place that artworks should always be seen in different locations!

  
  I would also like to point out that Ernst is exemplifying a familiar method of accessing artworks here, a method that I am happily teaching to my pupils. This method from academic art history wants you to start from close observation and description of formal aspects of the work before risking an interpretation. By means of this strategy arguments about a work of art are meant to become more solid, even if this visible gesture of searching for the right interpretation makes a text less smooth. Thus, Patrique's and Ernst's approaches are totally complementary.

  
  This said, I am not agreeing with Ernst in the way that "Rising Sea" is explicit in a way that certain Western art lovers might want to criticize. They might, but they would be very wrong. Let me explain: to me, the reproach of explicity rhymes with simplicity and a lack of layerdness. As you both have shown, "Rising Sea" does have multiple layers of possible interpretation and certainly some more, which have not been addressed here. These layers are visible, not only but most clearly, if the work is read against the backdrop of different locales. Artworks from our global age command us to look at them with changing perspectives. If certain Western art lovers can't be bothered to do this, they will forever be missing the point. Their fault. Let me add that you might even spot a good deal of irony in the way that El Anatsui has made this piece outstandingly beautiful, caressing the eye to the degree that every exhibition visitor wanted to take a selfie in front of it, while at the same time pointing to some very painful and threatening truths about today's humankind. Therefore, I would like to uphold that this artwork's relation to the viewers and to its places of exhibition is complex and challenging rather than simple or explicit.

   

  Annette"

  
  
  

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  Esther Kibuka-Sebitosi

  “Decolonizing self” is a photo demonstrating the complexity of cultures and how inter twinned African and western cultures have become. The photo was taken at a traditional wedding in Kanyanya village, where African cultural practices like sitting down on the mat are proudly demonstrated. Paradoxically, decolonizing the self-starting with the dress, is not an easy process as pieces of the western culture are clearly visible, for example the sunglasses, the necklace and ear rings all show the interlinkages between cultures. The example is excellent in showing culture, history and evolution of the traditional dress and political economy for educators. The mood of the gaze is best described by former President Thabo Mbeki in his poem,” I am an African” as he proudly says, “ “Today I feel good to be an African”.

   

  In unravelling decolonizing self, I want to start with explaining colonialism; Torres (2007) refers to colonialism as, “ a political and economic relation in which the sovereignty of a nation or people rests on the power of another nation”. He refers to coloniality as a long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism but that define “culture, labour, intersubjective relations and knowledge production well beyond the duration of colonial administration”. Hence, coloniality, he argues, survives colonialism and is maintained through books, music, academic performance, cultural patterns, in self-image and aspirations of self and is lived every day. It follows therefore that decolonizing self would have aspects of culture, language and daily practices that one has to get rid of. Taking an example of cultural dress, I dress in my traditional dress called the busuti or Gomesi. The image shows the dress and the Shaath (cream colour that is used to tie it). The necklace is modern shining with stones. The accessories are also western. I am sitting down on a mat made out of sisal and “nsansa- palm tree leaves. Sitting down is a cultural tradition and practice that dates back for generations. This is also a gender demonstration of roles of women who would sit on the mat to greet visitors who had come to be introduced. The practice of paying lobola (bride price) is common in Southern Africa and traverses the African continent. In the photograph, everybody dresses in the traditional dresses. It is a way of saying “I am an African” and I dress like this, “Look how smart my dress is lovely”.

   

  Ironically, long ago, the traditional dress was made of out of the Mutuba tree- Fig tree Ficus species. They got it from the bark of the tree, which they smashed until it became flat. It was dried and then rolled out. The cloth (Kikunta or Lubugo) comprised only of a sheet, which was wrapped around, the shoulders. Over the years, the Kikoyi replaced the kikunta as it was made out of cloth- cotton. Linked to the traditional dress, is the decorative materials from India. Inside the dress is another wraparound Kikoyi that together with decorations were also from India. The image shows the material of the dress- silk with beads. This material is from India or Dubai. The modern materials are no longer traditional (Kikunta and kikoyi). The local industry has adapted to make traditional dresses out of new materials linen, nylon, chiffon or a mixture instead of cotton or Lubugo from the Mutuba tree back.

   

  The image also demonstrates the mostly western sunglasses or gaggles. The sunglasses show the western culture I have adopted over the years. The Europeans normally put on sunglasses to protect their eyes from the sun. The occasion was held during the day as the sun was shining. It is not traditional practice to wear sunglasses. However, they help protect the shy people, as they do not have to look at all the guests. The gaze in the image is that of a woman comfortable in her body, sitting down with pride and taking pride in her tradition. This particular image was selected because it reveals the culture in transition. It is contemporary culture- a traditional wedding- a place where African Culture is luxuriously displayed. Paradoxically, the dress is traditional but the accessories are western showing the entangled nature of coloniality- the tradition African culture and the western culture, practices, all intertwined in intercultural interactions. The sunglasses may also demonstrate the cover up- hiding of self in the modern practices. Based on the above, it is not surprising that Decolonization is a layered process, which takes time and patience.

   

  Thabo Mbeki wrote a poem, “I am an African” expresses the objective of the constitution, “It is a firm assertion made by ourselves that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White”.

  As I sit on the mat and watch the bride and groom give gifts to each other, I remember the words of the former President of South Africa, “Today I feel good to be an African”.

   

  In decolonizing self, “decolonization” that has become the rallying cry for those trying to undo the racist legacies of the past, according to Achille Mbembe. Starting with cultural dressing is the first form of decolonizing self. Other forms include decolonizing power and decolonizing knowledge.

   

   

  published January 2020

   

  

  Katharina Knaus

  Beyoncé’s and Jay-Z´s Video „Apeshit“ discusses post-colonial exhibition art

   

  My first contact with art history was by reading E.H.Gombrich „The Story of art.“ (1909-2001). When starting my studies of art history in Munich, this was the book they recommended as standard literature. The cover text describes it as „the most famous and popular book on art ever published“. Although it claimes to be an introduction in art „for reader of all ages and backgrounds“ Gombrich tells a very one-sided story. Beyoncé’s and Jay-Z´s Video „Apeshit“ discusses post-colonial art historiography by exposing the Louvre as a white – dominated space.

   

   

  „Two black women are sitting on the floor wearing light brown tights and body-hugging beige vests. They are in profile, facing away from each other, and positioned at either side of David’s painting of the famous 19th Century French socialite. Linking the two women together is a flowing piece of white material, each end of which they wear on their heads like a turban.

   

   

  Above them, Madame Récamier reclines on her antique sofa, dressed in a simple sleeveless white dress, her head turned towards the viewer. The design of the sofa is similar to that of a sleigh-bed, with rising wooden ends. It is these bed ends that the women on the floor echo, the variance in the darkness of their skin matching the different tones of the wood in the painting.

   

  The cloth that links them represents the dress worn by the painting’s subject. The message is clear: It was on the backs of subjugated black people from the French colonies that Madame Récamier was able to enjoy her life of leisure and pleasure.“ (Will Gompertz)

   

  The Carters’ Louvre takeover isn’t just about protest; it is about power too. But the overall point is powerfully put. The game is up for those institutions – be it Hollywood, Broadway or the Louvre – which have ignored black artists, refused them a voice, or a seat at the top table.

   

   

  published January 2020

   

Read more …

• 

  Dong Xiaoling

   

  In the 13^th century, when traffic and information were sparse, Marco Polo, a Venetian, came to China by land and served the Chinese Yuan imperial court from 1275 to 1295. The white Chinese porcelain vases, which he took back to his motherland and which are archived at San Marco Museum in Venice today, are reputed as a symbol of the Chinese vogue that went viral in Europe 300 years later. The Travels of Marco Polo has stirred European’s imagination of China^[1] , and also promoted Europe's maritime exploration.

   

  However, before the opening of the new sea route between China and Europe in the 15^th century, Chinese porcelains were rarely exported to the European market as a commodity. The trade of Chinese porcelains to Europe was monopolized by Arab merchants, while European merchants could only obtain fewer Chinese porcelains from West Asia and Egypt in the form of intermediary trade. Unlike silk and spices, which were easy to carry and transport, Chinese porcelains were mostly sold locally by means of land transportation because of their fragility and weight. They were closely connected with local culture, after which they were imprinted with local aesthetic characteristics and shipped to Europe. However, Chinese porcelains were not what they had always been. Forerunner of great geographical discoveries as he was, Zheng made seven large-scale ocean voyages during Ming Dynasty from 1405 to 1433, but did not establish direct contact with Europe.

   

  Comparatively, European humanism and capitalism were at an embryo stage. From the 15^th century to the 17^th century, European fleets represented by Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands carried out sailing explorations in order to seek new trade routes and trading partners as well as develop the capitalism in Europe.

   

  First, Chinese porcelains were shipped to Europe as ballast. However, the European upper class favoured them by virtue of their smooth texture, delicate and hard casing and exquisite emblazonment. European royal nobles and bishops all were keen on owning Chinese porcelains to show off their wealth and status. European royal families’ love to Chinese porcelains did not ease in spite of the fact that they had little understanding of the materials and techniques and far away China. Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) had a collection of 3,000 pieces. Although Europe started importing Chinese porcelains on a big scale, a mysterious atmosphere always clung to these exquisite utensils. At that time, some people in Europe even thought that Chinese porcelains could play an anti-virus effect.

   

  The French doctor Loys Guyon (1527-1617) and Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) of England studied Chinese porcelains. Père Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles (1664-1741), a French missionary, was in Jingdezhen, China, for 7 years during the 17^th century. In 1712 and 1722, he wrote reports on the details of Chinese porcelains making which he observed and inquired into and mailed them back to the Jesuits in Europe, making it possible for French to imitate porcelains locally.

   

  Already in 1575, Italian Medici Grand Duke Francesco's factory made an attempt to produce porcelains, which was the first imitation recorded in Europe. Such a kind of Medici pottery bottle with blue and white patterns is collected in the Louvre. Both the white glazed blue painted pottery in Delft, the Netherlands, and the Nevers kiln in France have imitated the decorative style of Chinese porcelains. However, in terms of materials, they came in pottery or soft porcelain. The alchemist Bottger did not calcinate the earliest European porcelain at Meissen, Germany until 1709. In this process, the aesthetic taste in Europe had gradually changed. The fashion of loving oriental artifacts had gradually spread from nobles to rich bourgeoisie. As the demand for relatively cheap goods had also become more and more vigorous, porcelains had gradually turned a part of the daily life of the common. The nature of Chinese porcelain had gradually changed from collectibles to daily commodities.

   

  In order to meet the needs of European society, East India Companies in European countries imported a large number of porcelains from China in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In China, this kind of porcelain for export was called export-purpose Chinese porcelain.^[2] From the change of shape and pattern the export-purpose Chinese porcelains can be roughly classified into traditional styles, hybrid styles and foreign styles.

  1. Traditional styles (The shape and decoration of porcelain have not been influenced by foreign styles, and are no different from products on the Chinese market.)

  From the opening of the new sea route in the 16^th century to the lift of the ban on maritime trade in 1684, it was illegal for Chinese to export porcelains. As per the ban on maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty, non-governmental maritime trade was strictly prohibited, while official tribute trade was allowed with strict restrictions. Foreign countries could only conduct limited official trade with the Ming authorities. Since then, the Qing authorities have repeated the ban on maritime trade. The production and shipment then were at great risks.

   

  Merchants usually purchased Chinese porcelains in Guangzhou and then shipped them abroad from Macao, making the export-purpose Chinese porcelains dominated by traditional Chinese style at this stage. It influenced the early stage of the Chinese style in Europe as well as the reproduction and imitation of Chinese porcelain with soft pottery in Europe. Chinese porcelains were mainly used as daily necessities, such as dishes, bowls, bottles and pots. But there were few ornamental porcelains as well. The decorative patterns mostly came in cloud-dragons, deer, horses, cranes, monkeys, flying butterflies, birds and insects, folding branches and flowers, fairy ladies with babies, city walls with mountains and waters, auspicious characters, etc.

   

  

  Unknown, Blue and white porcelain vase, 1700-1710, Victoria and Albert Museum London.

   

  The style of blue-and-white porcelains represented the life of the easterners to Europeans. A great number of Chinese porcelains of this kind are recorded in the archives of Dutch East India Company.

   

  On the one hand, few Chinese porcelains were exported to Europe with a higher price; on the other hand, the pure oriental shape made Chinese porcelains deviate from the daily needs of Europeans. For example, easterners’ habit of eating rice and using chopsticks makes bowls the most common utensils in the East, while westerners’ custom of eating bread and using knives and forks has not made bowls, with a deep-walled shape, the mainstream of European tableware by far. Because the typical Chinese tableware consists of fewer parts compared to Western dining habits, Chinese porcelain dishes could only be used for holding cakes and pastries in Europe. For example, porcelain pen containers were used as wine cooler, and porcelain fish tanks were used as flowerpots... Chinese porcelains were constrained in terms of use, and often modified or displayed as ornaments. Therefore, a new style came out in the course of development.

  2. Hybrid styles. (Chinese traditional style couples with foreign ornaments and vise versa, or Eastern themes couple with Western ones for hybrid ornaments.)

  It is the stage of free transformation of Chinese style porcelains. Among this type, porcelain with traditional Chinese themes, or a mixture of different themes from China and Europe, combined with European shapes is the most representative. Part of the changes in the shape of European porcelain came from metalware, and part from the changes in lifestyle brought about by trade. For example, since the 17^th century, Europeans have been importing black tea and coffee from the East and chocolate from Mexico. These hot drinks come brown in color after brewing, and white Chinese porcelains serve as the most suitable drinking utensils. The emergence of new eating habits has promoted the transformation of Chinese porcelain utensils. The Dutch enlarged the size of traditional Chinese small teacups and designed a lug.^[3] Kraak porcelain^[4] and Mandarin style were the most representative.

   

  

  Unknown, Dish, ca. 1635-1655, Kraak Porcelain, Diameter: 47,5 cm, Bibliographic Reference: Clunas, Craig (ed.). Chinese Export Art and Design. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1987, p. 38, fig. 16.

   

  Kraak porcelain is a form of blue and white porcelain exported from Wanli Period of Ming Dynasty (1573-1620) to early Qing Dynasty. It was mainly shaped in dishes, bottles and bowls, and represented by trimmed patterns. These patterns came round, diamond-shaped and lotus petal-shaped, with designs of flowers, birds, fish and insects, landscapes, figures and auspicious mascots commonly seen in Chinese porcelains. Later, exotic religious myths and social life themes appeared in trimmed patterns. In terms of techniques, the traditional way of drawing the outline of the pattern on the surface of the porcelain body with a writing brush and then filling it in with color was adopted. Kraak porcelain is a kind of export-purpose porcelain with the largest quantity and the longest influence period of more than 100 years. After that, blue and white porcelain in Kangxi Period (1662-1722) of Qing Dynasty came in western rendering techniques in drawing, showing a maximum of eight or nine color gradations on the porcelain body. And it drew much popularity among westerners.

   

  The word “Mandarin” was a name for Chinese officials when Portuguese traded with Chinese merchants in the 17^th century. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, many missionaries and painters came to China and recorded their experiences there, including their life and work with Chinese officials in addition to preaching.

   

  Most of the decorative patterns depicted the life of officials and wealthy merchants in Qing Dynasty, who enjoyed a rich and leisurely family life. These descriptions and landscape paintings further aroused European‘s curiosity about live in China. Aiming at this market opportunity, Guangzhou Porcelain Workshop launched Mandarin style products for European and American markets. Some patterns use the perspective technology of European oil paintings, and the expressions of the characters are vivid, which conforms to the aesthetic orientation of Europeans. These patterns presented a desirable pastoral oriental atmosphere for westerners. Playing in picturesque courtyard gardens, hunting in enchanting springtime, harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature, and vivid home life scenes embodied elegant Chinese costumes, fascinating home decoration, exquisite garden scenes, and charming family happiness. These themes greatly satisfied Europeans’ curiosity and yearning for the East.

   

  

  Unknown, Three Vases, 1700-1720, Procelain, Jingdezhen, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

   

  3. Foreign styles. (Chinese porcelains satisfying the requirements of European merchants in terms of shapes and patterns, calcined elaborately to serve European consumers’ needs. Most of the patterns were drawn in strict accordance with the prints and patterns as required by customers, so they were usually called custom-made porcelains.)

  One type was produced in the 17th century. Since Europe had not yet mastered the technology of porcelain-making, Chinese porcelain workers imitated the pottery of European style according to the requirements of European merchants. Chinese Porcelain competed with European pottery in this way and earned a lot of silver used as currency.

   

  

  Unknown, Vase with Angel, 1700, Porcelain, H: 36cm, Victoria and Albert Museum London. Bibliographic Reference: Clunas, Craig (ed.). Chinese Export Art and Design. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1987, p. 60, fig. 40.

   

  Another type emerged when the Chinese style in the West reached its peak in the 18th century and Chinese characters and landscapes imagined by Westerners appeared in the patterns. The pictures are humorous and interesting, while the number is quite limited. In addition, there were porcelain carvings, figures and animals.

   

  The pattern was typically formed by heraldry (the special signs of European and American aristocratic guilds, groups, etc. In the 18th century, China sold up to 600,000 kinds of heraldry porcelain to Europe). In addition, characters (out of Greek or Roman fairy tales, the Bible, European customs-based sketches), ships, landscapes, flowers, etc. used to be popular themes among Europeans. Besides, European living habits were taken into consideration in terms of modeling.

   

  

  Unknown, Souceboat, ca. 1740, Porcelain, L: 18,4cm, Victoria and Albert Museum London. Bibliographic Reference: Howard, David Santuary. Chinese Armorial Porcelain. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1974, p. 295.

   

  Apart from blue and white, multicolored and famille rose ones were among this kind of style. Because of the higher cost, longer period of capital occupation, more complicated procedures and greater commercial risks, this variety did not turn a mainstream among export-purpose Chinese porcelains in spite of their distinctive features. Especially in 1769, the first production line of British Wedgwood Porcelain Plant rolled off, when European porcelain production began to leap from the handicraft era to the industrial era. Since then, importing Chinese porcelains has grown unprofitable, and the porcelains in Chinese style turned gradually out of date.

   

  In the course of trade development for nearly 300 years from the 16^th century to 19^th century, from “Made in China” to “Making Chinese Porcelains”, the Chinese vogue going viral in Europe represented a process of Europeanization of Chinese cultural practices. In this process, lacquerware, woven carpets, clothing, furniture, wallpaper and garden architecture were as well used for reference, quotation and modification in Europe, and finally integrated into the social context of Europe, influencing and even changing the artistic outlook of Europe. Nowadays, the shortened distance and accessible information across the world enable us to see the diversity of cultures more quickly and accurately. More possibilities for cultural exchanges will definitely be springing up in the future.

   

   

  FOOTNOTES

   

  ^[1]              China in the 13^th-19^th centuries was only a Far East country geographically along with India, Southeast Asia, South Korea and Japan

  ^[2]              Due to the limited space, the export-purpose Chinese porcelain in this paper refers specifically to the exported ones to Europe.

  ^[3]              Lin Lin's, Research on Porcelain Trade of Dutch East India Company in the 17^th-18^th Centuries, pp 31-34.

  ^[4]              Its name probably originated from Portugal Caraack, meaning “giant merchant ship”.

   

   

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