“Patterned Modernity: Intersections of textiles and art in Nigeria”
This project analyzes the use of two textiles, the adire and Ankara (wax print), in the production of Nigerian contemporary art as part of a continuing articulation of modernity. I will trace the production of these textiles through a complex history of trade, technical developments, gendered roles in production, and the evolution of patterns as part of the narrative of modernity in Nigeria that has been largely overlooked. The study will thus take as its starting point the early 19th century when West Africa played a pivotal role in global exchange, and contributed to modernization worldwide. By examining these histories, I aim to demonstrate how critical the textile was not only to visual culture and dress of the Yoruba but how critical textiles were to the local economy, local politics, and constructions of identity, and thus to processes of modernization and linking Yoruban visual culture globally through processes of cultural transfer.
A long pastime of weaving, dyeing and printing textiles have amounted to a complex pattern language throughout West Africa that plays a role in the construction of personal, cultural, and even national identities. Thus, in addition to the historical analysis of textiles, this project will conduct parallel visual analyses of key patterns with the purpose of answering the questions: how do certain patterns, changes in patterns, and specific pattern uses articulate moments of modernity in Yoruban culture? What can we know of the processes of modernization in Nigeria through these articulations? What are the implications of the use of these textiles in modern and contemporary Nigerian art? Rather than lay out a linear narrative of Nigerian modernism, the answers to these questions will likely reveal a modernity evolved through moments of transition and hybridity between the pre-modern and the modern, and moments of juncture and transfer between local and distant cultures.
The appropriation of textiles by contemporary artists functions as mediator in the complex terrain of identity politics at both local and global levels, particularly for those who wish to address the experience of migration. In the last two decades, high-profile contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Sokari Douglas Camp, and Njideka Akunyili have risen to prominence in the art world through their work featuring African textiles. For these artists, using or referencing textiles was a way of reflecting a part of their split identities. For Shonibare, a self-proclaimed “post-colonial hybrid,” it was a means of critiquing the West’s preconceived notions of African art and “africanness.” While these artists became de facto ambassadors of contemporary African art (whether they wanted to be or not) their work actually symbolized multicultural identities and experiences and became a contact zone for the negotiation of seemingly disparate cultural symbols. Using the work of several artists active in Lagos as case-studies, this project will focus on how artists such as Nike Davies Okundaye, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Kolade Oshinowo, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Victoria Udondian navigate the complexities of identity in modern and post-modern Nigeria through explorations of textile patterns and textile-based traditions like commemorative cloths.
