Co-chairs:

Jessica Hurd, Ph.D., Visiting Curator and Exhibition Program Designer at Southern University Museum of Art, Shreveport, LA, Private Collections Researcher, and Former Adjunct Art History Professor at University of North Texas, email: jessicaannehurd@gmail.com

Mr. Souleymane Ouologuem, Contemporary Artist, Art Educator, and President of Anw-Ko’Art Foundation, email: anwkoart@yahoo.fr

This panel examines the philosophical, psychological, and sometimes spiritual ways that many contemporary African artists engage with their creative media (different types of wood, found and repurposed objects, clay, fibers, metals, dyes…). We are interested in how the unique physical qualities, natural behaviors, myths, and histories of use associated with these “living and transformative” objects can impact the overall meaning of the artists’ final works. Is it possible that the symbolic approach to creative media could serve as a conceptual bridge between African artists working in the international art market and those working in a more local art market? We will also consider the role of more modern, industrial materials, such as colored markers and printing paper. What are we missing by assuming that these objects are simply a means to an end and not active agents in the artists' creative processes?

Co-chairs Jessica Hurd and Souleymane Ouologuem present “The Symbolic Resonances of Creative Media in Dogon Contemporary Art”

Our discussion will focus on the highly conceptual ways that three Dogon artists of Mali are engaging with their creative media. For artist Amahiguéré Dolo, we will explore how the colors, textures, and “poses” of collected wood branches helps the artist to process his dreams, emotions, local myths, and philosophies. For artist Alaye Kene Tèmè, we will consider how “magically appearing,” white papers and colored markers are imagined as beneficial rain clouds and life-sustaining blood. The third artist, Souleymane Ouologuem, will be present in this panel! Using examples from his own work and the work of Dogon weavers, he will discuss the symbolic role of cloth strips from bugúnin and bogolan garments in his painted canvases.

Panelists Barbara Frank and Roslyn Walker present “The Power of Silk and Mud in African Artistry”

African peoples have great respect for the natural world that sustains and heals them. The specialized knowledge of apotropaic materials and the recipes to activate them represent expertise passed from generation to generation. Silk and clay are among those substances known worldwide for their healing properties. Examples include the use of fermented mud and other herbs in the special cloths (bogolanfini) Bamana women painstakingly produce to heal and protect the wearer. What has been lost and what has been gained in the transformation of bogolan into an instantly recognizable symbol of African pride in the hands of contemporary designers and artists in Mali and the Diaspora? Similarly, wild silk -- spun, woven with cotton, and dyed with indigo by elder Dogon women -- is valued for both its aesthetic qualities and its healing properties. Both the Yoruba of Nigeria and Malagasy groups of Madagascar weave filament from the cocoons of domesticated or wild silkworms into cloth. Are there lessons to be learned about the cultural significance of silk and mud that transcend the specific meanings within these diverse contexts? This paper explores the way African artists have engaged these powerful materials in their artistry, conscious of the energy released and contained in the materials they employ.

Panelist Mark Melissa presents “Between Art and History: Reconstructing Slave Narratives Across the Atlantic using the Ankh”

The Ankh is one of the Black world’s most enigmatic symbols, widely known through art, literature, religion, and history. My paper explores the intertextual and intergenerational interpretations of the Ankh, bringing into focus its shifting historiographical and geographical understandings. Discussing the historical interpretation in precolonial Africa, on the one hand, and postcolonial understanding of gestures, on the other, the article examines the conceptions of the Ankh that come into play in society and considers the fate of the people of the Ankh in this light. The article argues that the Ankh exposes the thin line between lost African utopias and current dystopias while allowing readers to reflect on the dangers as well as the possibilities of modernity. However, the historical memory of the ankh, preserved in the oral cultures of sedentary preliterate cultures, reveals a history, not only of the ankh, but of the social and political dynamics of colonized and enslaved peoples in Africa. While formal literacy might appear to hold sway on historical knowledge and accuracy, there are places where oral history and art, through storytelling (narrative inquiry or history) give legitimacy to contrasting understandings of slavery in West Africa, and the interpretation of West African art in the Northern Hemisphere.

Panelist Janet Goldner presents “I nice, Thank You, Merci: An Ongoing Dialogue about Art, Life and Building Bridges”

This paper examines the long collaboration between the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane and I, and the ways that artist materials and philosophy inspire and unite us. The six Malian artists of Groupe Bogolan Kasobane are largely responsible for having elevated bogolan, a traditional textile technique used to decorate garments, to an important symbol of national and even pan-national identity. Their insistence on using local resources and “elevating” materials associated with craft are strategies employed by many contemporary artists throughout the world.

Literally made of the earth, forests, rivers, and sun of Mali, bogolan’s materials and process of manufacture speak to powerful holistic connections with the earth as a material resource. Although often translated as “mud cloth,” bogolan actually refers to a clay slip with a high iron content that produces a black pigment when applied to handspun and handwoven cotton textiles.

I am an American sculptor who works largely in metal. Dembele said: “You work in steel, and we work with clay. And we said to ourselves that this is the work of the same person. Because, traditionally, it is the blacksmiths who are the first artists. We who are men and should work in steel, she is the one who works in steel. And women should work in clay, and we are the ones who work with clay. That was something that attracted our attention.” In this way, we have worked to understand, preserve, and protect Malian cultural traditions.

Panelists Information and Contacts:

Barbara Frank, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Stonybrook University, Stonybrook, New York, email: Barbara.Frank@stonybrook.edu

Roslyn Adele Walker, Ph.D., Senior Curator, the Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific, The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, email: RWalker@dma.org

Mark Malisa, Graduate Student, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, mmalisa@uwf.edu

Janet Goldner, Visual Artist, New York City, NY, email: art@janetgoldner.com