Install Week in Gallery 20

This week marks not only the start of a large amount of final second year university work (well over 10,000 words worth to be completed over the next four weeks), but it also marks the start of the Style Africa installation!

To keep you up to date with progress here are a few pictures of how we've been getting on, with only one day of install left before the doors open on Saturday!

A view of the hanging fabrics from the back of the gallery space.

Measuring fabric bundles selected to compliment each other on a wall display. 

The view from the entrance of the exhibition, on the end of installation day 4.

The almost-completed wall section about Yoruba dyeing processes.

Fabric Workshop at the Museums Collection Centre

This week's meeting took place at the Museums Collection Centre in Nechells and was an opportunity to get to grips with a wide variety of fabric in the run up to the exhibition.  This particular workshop included wax prints designed and made in the United Kingdom, West Africa, and in the Netherlands.  This meant that we could finally get our hands on some Vlisco amongst a myriad of other styles and makes of cloth.  

During the second part of the meeting we were able to rifle through a clothes hanger full of clothes made with the pieces of cloth we had previously been handling.  The top below is a particular complicated piece, the bold blue and while print embellished with a sheer electric blue material and pearls:

Viewing handmade clothes like this helped focus our attention on what sort of clothing items we would like to have displayed in the exhibition, if at all.  We were also given an opportunity to flick through some magazines featuring recent African fashion house campaigns in order to get some inspiration:

During the final part of our workshop, we accompanied Adam to the temperature controlled warehouse where the special collections are housed, photographed and restored.  Here we were able to view some Yoruba adire cloth.  This particular style of West African cloth is my favourite; wax is melted on to the plain fabric, before being immersed in a special indigo dye, best produced by the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.  The result? Fabulously complicated and individual two-tonal designs on vast sheets of fabric:

Adinkra Symbol of the Week

This week's symbol is called 'Mate Masie':

Translated, 'Mate Masie' means "I understand" and is symbolic of wisdom, knowledge and prudence.  It can also mean "what I hear, I keep".  This symbol also highlights the need for one to take into consideration what another has said.  

African Ankara on Gwen Stefani

Look what I found on the cover of L'Officiel magazine:

Remember this post? The dress was worn by Beyonce on February's issue of L'Officiel magazine:

Gallery 20

Want to see a picture of the gallery which we'll be filling with copious amounts of colourful African cloth? Here's how gallery 20 looks at the moment (...a kind of 'before' picture).

The ceiling is made for hanging exquisite examples of cloth from too:

Adinkra Symbol of the Week

This weeks Adinkra symbol is called Fihankra:

Translated, "Fihankra" means house or compound and the 'four walls' of this particular design represent the safety and security traditional Akan housing (with it's one entrance/exit) give its people.