Image credit: Hugh Sitton, Getty Images

Unwrapping African Commemorative Cloth

Exploring Communication and Commemoration through Personal and Political Textiles

This exhibition is an exploration of factory-printed textiles from the African continent, demonstrating the incredible communicative power of cloth from the diverse cultures of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, Malawi, Tchad, and Zimbabwe.

Close-up side view of an aisle of African clothes in the museum collection. They are dyed, woven, and otherwise embellished in a variety of methods representing the diverse material cultures present on the African continent.

Read more about printing, dyeing, weaving, and the rich history of textile production in sub-Saharan Africa.

A close-up of an aisle of African textiles in the museum collection. These textiles are stored on cloth-wrapped steel rods, rolled up and covered with a plastic outer wrap. Artifacts are stored this way to best preserve the quality of the textiles over long-term storage.

Read more about our donors, their stories, and their ties to the University of Alberta's Department of Human Ecology.