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The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End
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Sokari Douglas Camp, CBE (British, b.1958)
Nigerian Woman Shopping, 1990
Steel; 70 7/8 x 26 x 32 5/8 in. (180 x 66 x 83 cm)
Packman Lucus Collection, London
Read about this artist.
Listen to Sokari Douglas Camp discuss this work or go to Met Podcast to read the transcript.
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This faceless woman's presence is defined by the spangled print of the cloth wrapped around her. She would be invisible were it not for its bold stars and crescents. Douglas Camp notes that the design deliberately evokes a popular Dutch wax print whose star-and-crescent-moon pattern, produced in bold yellow and blue, was recognized to be derived from Arab sources. The Dutch textile company Vlisco has produced a series of prints for its West African clientele that are variations on this motif. The figure is anchored by a large bag of the kind colloquially referred to as a "Ghana must go" bag for its identification with the expulsion of displaced Ghanaian residents from Nigeria in the 1970s. Manufactured of woven plastic, such bags are often used for transporting cloth.
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