With over 3,000 diverse ethnic groups spread over 54 countries, Africa offers a huge variety of traditions, customs, and forms of art. Among the most famous artworks produced on the continent are functional masks, which reflect the great importance of theater and masquerades in African education, ritual, and entertainment. Different forms of masks include face masks, body … [Read more...] about African Masks and Headdresses: Researched by Chaney Jewell
Basketry has developed in all parts of the world, and the objects produced reflect their uses, their meanings, and the cultures that made them. Traditional cultures use basketry to make nets and weirs for hunting and fishing, to hold and distribute seeds during planting, to gather crops during the harvest, to process foods and materials, to store and ferment, and to hold, … [Read more...] about African Basketry: Researched by Lindsay Werner, Caitlin Baker, and Randi Ryder
From ancient times through today, African cultures have made beads of many different materials, including shells, seeds, bone, ivory, horn, clay, gourd, wood, rock crystal, iron, copper, brass, and gold. The widespread trade of colorful European glass seed beads, however, enabled African artisans to greatly expand traditional beadwork forms and designs, and they elevated this … [Read more...] about African Beadwork: Researched by Amanda Horned and Cortney Metzger
This cloth figure represents a 20th-century Ghanaian woman doing chores, sweeping up the mess that is in front of her. The most interesting aspect of this figure, however, is that she wears a dress and head covering of fabric printed to represent the famous Asante cloth known as Kente. Like the Korhogo cloth also in this exhibit, Kente cloth is one of the few textiles in … [Read more...] about Figure of a Sweeping Woman wearing Kente Cloth: Researched by Hannah Harmon
Like Senufo Korhogo cloth, Bogolanfini cloth is dyed with a type of iron-rich mud. Bogolanfini cloth differs from other mud cloths, however, in that the mud dyes are not only especially rich in minerals, but also fermented, and they therefore produce an especially deep brownish-black color. Bogolanfini cloth also differs in being made using a negative process. The designs are … [Read more...] about Bogolanfini Mud Cloth with Lines, Dots, and U shapes: Researched by Hannah Harmon