![]() ![]() “We understand that the war is essentially about power and colonisation. This faux-authenticity is what led revered British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE to a long career with batik as his muse - tackled by a school tutor for not making ‘authentic African art’, Shonibare was motivated to explore the notion of Africanness, finding the convoluted history of this perceived African fabric the exact metaphor for the identity-minded work that drives him. Flower Power Kids (Duelling) 2014įibreglass mannequins, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, decommissioned antique flint-lock guns, wire, globes, leather and steel baseplates © 2013 Yinka Shonibare MBEĬourtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, Photographer: Stephen White © Yinka Shonibare MBE The intention? To flood the Indonesian market with cheap, machine-made interpretations of their traditional labour-intensive cloth.Įnlisting a small army of West African slaves and mercenaries to boost their own forces in the then Dutch East Indies, the Dutch inadvertently gave birth to the long-standing history that these fabrics have endured on the continent the men taking batik back to their home countries, and a taste almost two centuries old being born on West African soil. The results marry almost exactly to the mental image search your brain had already performed, right? Ubiquitous on the catwalk and in popular culture, synonymous with a hazy definition of Africanness, but most importantly: not African at all.įlashback to 1846 and the small Dutch city of Helmond: industrialist Pieter Fentener van Vlissingen’s newly-purchased textile factory began creating imitation batik fabric based on traditional designs from Indonesia (then known as the Dutch East Indies – the country had a long history of creating patterned fabrics by applying wax to a cloth, then dying over that wax). ![]() ![]() Tagged: African Art, African Fashion, African fashion designers, africanness, faux authenticity, Nest Collective, Not African Enoughĭrop the search term ‘African prints’ into Google Image Search and sit back. ![]()
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