African Languages and Societies Commons^™

Making Absences Present: The Process Of Visualizing Knowledge Production In Museum Records, Caitlin Glosser

Artl@s Bulletin

In this paper, I evaluate the development of data visualizations as an art historical approach. By visualizing data for Senufo-labeled objects in the Musée Africain de Lyon’s collection, I demonstrate how the museum’s knowledge infrastructure privileges European collectors over African makers. I use Tableau visualizations to decenter this narrative by making silences present in a more impactful manner than through text alone. The visualizations also reveal the complex role that one maker, Bèma Coulibaly, played in the life of the collection. The addition of the individual narrative to the data was necessary to bring a human element into view.

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But Them Can’T Be God: Chinese Textiles In Nigerian Dress And The Art Of Ayo Akinwande, Erin M. Rice

Artl@s Bulletin

This article explores the influence of Chinese actors in the Nigerian textile industry through the lens of a work by the artist Ayo Akinwande. By examining a sartorial practice called aso-ebi, the author argues that the growth of this practice over the course of the 20^th century paved the way for an influx of cheap, printed cloth from China. Akinwande’s work titled, “Win-Win,” uses the metaphor of indigenous dress and patterned fabric to illustrate that Chinese involvement in Nigerian affairs extends beyond textiles to the construction industry.

“Other Modernities”: Art, Visual Culture And Patrimony Outside The West. An Introduction, Silvia Naef, Irene Maffi, Wendy Shaw

Artl@s Bulletin

The notion of modernity as a tabula rasa phenomenon that destroys the present in order to build the future is particularly complicated in the case of non-Western settings, where modernization was often understood as erasing local culture in favor of a template borrowed from the West. Historiographies of non-Western arts have mostly followed such a model, viewing fine arts, associated with modernity, as opposed to “traditional” arts, often commodified in the production of nostalgia or marketed for tourists. This article discusses the complexity of art production in non-Western contexts, beyond such reductive classifications.

Literary And Theatrical Circulations In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Rwanda And Burundi, From The Belgian Colonial Empire To The Africa Of The Great Lakes., Maëline Le Lay

Artl@s Bulletin

This article on literary and theatrical circulations in Africa’s Great Lakes region begins by retracing the history of these practices, taking several examples from the colonial period. It then analyzes contemporary modalities of the circulation of texts (via procedures such as reprising narrative patterns and adaptation), and cultural actors, in the different transnational arts networks that are more or less closely tied to the humanitarian sector, or to international cooperation. Finally, it proposes a critical questioning of the concept of artistic circulation.

Style Migrations: South-South Networks Of African Fashion, Victoria L. Rovine

Artl@s Bulletin

Fashion design from Africa and by African designers provides a rich source of information about south-south networks of influence and inspiration. Using several case studies, this article explores the products of cultural interactions between Africa and other world regions, and between cultures within Africa, to illuminate south-south networks of innovation. Case studies include the work of Sakina M’Sa, Maimouna Diallo, and the distinctive embroidery of northern Mali known as “Ghana Boy” style.