The Sisi Kwa Sisi Collective was founded in 1983 amid turbulent political conditions following Kenya’s failed military coup in 1982. Etale Sukuro is a cofounder of the group, which was made up of 12 artists, including Kangara wa Njambi (b. 1957), Kabacia Gatu (b. 1951), Gakunju Kaigwa (b. 1958), Mwaniki wa Gachia, Zarina Patel (1935–2024), Kahare Miano, Gikonyo Maina, Mwaura Ndekere, and John Diang’a (b. 1945).¹ In this conversation, scholar and curator Donald Maingi traces Sukuro’s artistic journey—from his early collaboration with Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) through the failed campaigns to establish Kenya’s first national art gallery, to the open-air traveling exhibitions organized by Sisi Kwa Sisi.

Donald Maingi: Sukuro, can you tell us a little about your journey as an artist? What first inspired you to pursue art? Tell us about your upbringing, your personal experiences, and the influences that helped shape your art and your role in cofounding the Sisi Kwa Sisi Collective.

Etale Sukuro: I was born in 1954 and educated in Tanzania. I studied fine art up to A-level and went on to do literature at the University of Dar es Salaam. In 1976, I came to Kenya, and I started teaching at St. Saviour High School in Nairobi and then moved on to Naromoru Girls High School in Murang’a, teaching literature and Swahili language. But in 1977, I moved back to Nairobi to join the late professor Wangari Maathai in her department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi and, also, to work with her at the National Council of Women of Kenya. She was the chairperson then.²

In the Veterinary department, I was a demonstrator and illustrator. And at the National Council of Women of Kenya, I was a contributor to their magazine Kenyan Women Today. I was also the illustrator for that magazine. In that same year, 1977, Professor Wangari Maathai (1940 – 2011) came up with the idea of the Green Belt Movement. I did the logo for the Green Belt Movement, which is still in use now. And I also did all the illustrations for social marketing for the Green Belt Movement. This inspired me to do my first solo exhibition in 1978 at the French Cultural Center. 

It was during this period that Professor Wangari Maathai was being hounded out of office and the Kenya National Council of Women was being dismantled by the government. The regime launched Maendeleo ya Wanawake to take over from the National Council of Women, which had been an umbrella for all women’s associations in Kenya. It was during those struggles that my resistance to the political regime grew more and more.

At the same time, the University of Nairobi was doing, for the first time, a traveling theater around Kenya, and it was also banned by that regime. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938–2025) had done some plays, and they were also facing problems with the government.³ In 1979, there was a suggestion to establish the first national art gallery. We had not, up to then, had a national art gallery. We have had several galleries that have come up and tried to help where there was a gap. During that time, I was the chairman of the Central Art Clubs of Kenya, and I was part of the committee to establish the Kenya National Art Gallery. 

DM: Could you walk us through the founding of Sisi Kwa Sisi? How did you first meet as a group of artists—among them Kangara wa Njambi, Kabacia Gatu, Gakunju Kaigwa, Mwaniki wa Gachia, Zarina Patel, Kahare Miano, Gikonyo Maina, Mwaura Ndekere, and John Diang’a? What united you? What was your initial vision for the collective in contributing to the formation of a national art gallery? And how did the name Sisi Kwa Sisi emerge within that context?

ES: Let me just start with Sisi Kwa Sisi. It is a Swahili phrase that can mean “us by us” or “us for us.” “Us by us” means artist by artist, [that is,] Kenyan artist by Kenyan artists. “Us for us” means Kenyan art is for Kenyan people.

Back in 1979, the Kenyan government allocated money for the first time to renovate a former commercial bank building into an international art gallery. We—as artists’ associations, including Kenya Arts Designers and the Arts Club of Kenya, of which I was chairman—were contacted and asked to curate the exhibition that would inaugurate that building as a national art gallery. We went around the country as a committee and collected over 3,000 pieces from Kenyan artists, [so that we would be] ready to put them up once the renovation was finished.

We had a lot of problems with some people in the government in selecting the kind of work that could be shown. As we went on, we realized that most of the important works were going to be left out. But the worst thing that happened is that one government official came to tell the committee: “This exhibition is not going to be for Kenyan artists only. It is going to be with the Murumbi collection.”⁴ Murumbi was one of Kenya’s first vice presidents after independence—a staunch collector of artifacts from all over Africa. His artifacts were supposed to share the inaugural exhibition with our work. We discussed [this] as a committee and realized if we refused, we would be thrown out altogether and the national art gallery would not even start. So we agreed.

That was just the beginning of more problems, because the same officials came back and told us the inaugural exhibition would be the Murumbi collection alone. This was not acceptable. When I saw this misfortune happen, I went to the Department of Culture—which had been formed that same year, in 1979—and saw the minister, who directed me to the director of culture James Kangwana. Kangwana was one of the founders of Paa ya Paa, the famous gallery in Kenya. He agreed with me that there was a need for a national art gallery and told me that since this would now require political will from the highest office in the land, we needed to produce artworks that the president himself would officially unveil. These works would then be taken to the provinces—at that time we had eight provinces, not counties—and through that, we could ask the government for space to house the collection.

So Kangwana asked me to go and do research in all eight provinces and depict the traditional architecture of one nationality from each province. I did eight large paintings (fig.1)—48 inches by 16 feet each—which were to be taken to the provinces after the president saw them. The exhibition, called Utamaduni wa Sanaa (The Traditions of Art), went up in 1981 at City Hall in Nairobi. It was a major exhibition. Unfortunately, the traveling component never happened. And those eight paintings were never sent to the provinces. As I speak, I know a number of them were given away to Chinese officials who came to build the national stadium in Kenya. The others . . . I don’t know where they are.

Our second chance to create a center for Kenyan art died in 1981. The artists on that committee—some of whom had also been part of the first attempt at the National Archives building—sat together. One of the key members was Kangara wa Njambi. Some members of the Utamaduni wa Sanaa (The Traditions of Art) committee—Kabacia Gatu, myself, and others—decided to take some of the works that had been exhibited and add more, and then to take them on a traveling exhibition.⁵ This traveling exhibition was informed by what had happened with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want)—and the events surrounding the University of Nairobi’s traveling theater. There were many other factors that had inspired us to sit down and decide that we had to take our art to our people. And our content had to address Kenyan people. We were no longer going to do what had been done in previous years—when, basically, most Kenyan artists produced souvenirs for tourists. That’s what happened for many years. So we started Sisi Kwa Sisi.

DM: The art world in the 1980s was really a very busy environment. We had ex-Mau Mau artists coming up—like Samwel Wanjau (1936–2020), a rural ex-Mau Mau freedom fighter, and Edward Njenga (1922–2022), an urban ex-Mau Mau freedom fighter.⁶ What was your relationship with these artists? At the time, ex-Mau Mau freedom fighters were really vilified politically, and yet here they were, making art, just as Sisi Kwa Sisi was also springing up.

ES: Samwel Wanjau and Edward Njenga are my seniors. What was very interesting—what intrigues us—is the fact that they could express the politics before and after independence in Kenya, mainly the oppressive politics, through sculpture, which is very difficult. More interesting is the fact that expressing this through sculpture was interpreted as less threatening by the regime than paintings, which are more illustrative.

When you look at Edward Njenga’s work (fig. 3) and Samwel Wanjau’s work (figs. 2, 4), it is very clear and obvious that they were not doing these works in order to sell them. A number of [their subjects] look very sad, very violent. They were clearly producing this work to express the political, social, and economic situation in the country. And they inspired us—all the more so for the fact that by using that medium, sculpture, they could express so much. We realized what they had done—and that we should pick it up from there and put it in our own work. And this is the work that would then resonate with Kenyan people and be understood by them in terms of its context.

DM: What would you say really shaped Sisi Kwa Sisi at its early stages? Artists like Kangara wa Njambi, Zarina Patel—how did their practices fit into the collective’s early vision?

ES: Right from the outset, when we decided we were going to do work as Sisi Kwa Sisi, it actually meant doing different work from what had always been done—pieces geared toward pleasing expatriates, tourists, and some rich Kenyans. We decided that our work—us, Sisi—was going to be addressed to Kenyan people, squarely addressing the issues going on in Kenya in the past, present, and probably the future.

The oppression that was going on was not anything new—it had been going on [for a long time], and it was getting worse by the day. So we decided to tackle the disappearance of Kenyan culture. We decided to tackle neocolonialism and imperialism. If you look at a number of works, you’ll see two of the major issues depicted are food security and safety. And another is oppression. There was complete suppression of freedom of speech during the regime at that time. In fact, one had to be very careful when about to say anything—even just mentioning the name of the president. You had to look left, right, front, and back. Who is around? Just in case you might be picked up like anybody else. So in doing this kind of work, we knew the dangers.

But one fact was on our side: the level of education—or exposure—of politicians in relation to art was very low. They took it that art is just for pleasure. They couldn’t conceive that art could be a tool for education or a tool for the communication of ideology. So to that extent, we had freedom. We were able to express ourselves.

At that very same time, cartoonists—including Terry Hirst (1932–2015) and Paul Kelemba otherwise known as Maddo (b. 1962)—were coming up with artworks that questioned the regime. Our friend the late Wahome Mutahi (1954–2003) was a writer, playwright, and columnist for the Daily Nation newspaper. He, together with my friend Paul Kelemba—going by the name Maddo, one of the most famous cartoonists in Kenya—worked to depict the same oppressive behavior of the regime in a humorous way, and they went as far as setting up a traveling theater for one of Wahome Mutahi’s plays. It was also banned. Having both visual and performing artists continuously agitating for freedom of speech, questioning the bad behavior of the regime, the oppression, the killings . . . We decided that since our work was not for sale in the first place, we might as well make it serve an educational purpose.

DM: What was the relationship between Nairobi street sign painting and the early stages of Sisi Kwa Sisi? You’ve written about the history of sign painting as a practice within Kenya since the 1930s. What was the impact of that visual culture on these young artists who established their practices in the early 1980s?

ES: Unfortunately, a lot of murals done by these artists in bars, hotels, churches, and marketplaces have been whitewashed (fig. 5).⁷ But if you look at some of our work—when I say our, I mean Sisi Kwa Sisi’s work—you’ll see that it is illustrative. It could be more graphic at times, but it is illustrative (figs. 6–11). Sign painting is one of the art forms that truly reached Kenyan people more than any other throughout the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.⁸ [That was] because these artists did more or less social-marketing work: signage, illustrative paintings, murals in bars and public places, comical at times to make their work more interesting to their patrons.

They inspired us in a way that made us realize that if they have done this for all this long, then we could take our art to Kenyan people—starting with portable works and eventually doing prints. We could take our work to places where a lot of people come—not because they are coming to see an exhibition, not like in galleries, but because they are coming to do something else. And while there, they are able to view these art pieces. That is exactly where our traveling art exhibitions picked up their inspiration.

DM: What was the public perception of the open-air exhibitions? What impact did they have on people who had never visited an art gallery? And how did that help shape the Sisi Kwa Sisi workshops and art promotions?

ES: When the second attempt to establish the Kenya National Art Gallery through the Department of Culture failed, and the traveling exhibition from the Utamaduni Asani exhibition was shelved, we had already built exhibition panels. I had initiated that at the Department of Culture. I borrowed them from the department, and with our friends, we decided to take them to the biggest marketplaces in Nairobi (fig. 12), to the slums of Nairobi, to the streets of Nairobi.

We decided we had to document the sentiment—the feeling and the feedback from those who came to see our works. A young man was stationed to write down responses. They wrote a lot. I have volumes upon volumes of comments (fig. 13). One of the most remarkable—which really moved me—came from a young child from a school in one of the biggest slums. They wrote: “I did not know we had such people who can draw such pictures in our country.” I just couldn’t believe it. And some of them were saying, “We only thought this would be in our textbooks, not being displayed for us.”

We had some sessions from around nine in the morning until six in the evening, and we would have 20,000 people or more—we couldn’t count. Why? Because they were passing by or they were in the market. Women would go on with their business as usual, but whoever was coming by was going to see what we were displaying (fig. 14). The initial work we displayed had mild political content—because, number one, the panels would have been taken away from us immediately, and number two, that would have meant the end of our traveling exhibition. So we were introducing the content of our political dissent slowly.

What we learned from this exhibition is that it was really high time—counting from independence, it had been, God knows, forty or fifty years—that Kenyans had no place, no way, to go and see Kenyan artwork produced by Kenyan artists. We realized we could go on with this, but it was quite daunting for us financially. We had to hire vehicles to carry these panels. Some broke in strong winds, and we had to pay the Department of Culture for replacements.

Amazingly, some of the comments we got were, “How can I get one of these pictures to hang in my place?” We realized that if we were selling our original work at the price equivalent to somebody’s half salary, we had to do something different to be able to sell copies at 100 shillings—less than a dollar. We realized the only way to do this was to make prints. So we set up a printing workshop in my studio (fig. 15). We trained more artists in screen printing, etching, and so forth. When we went to the open-air traveling exhibitions, we would have works that were affordable to the people coming—and we would have variety. Because it is very important that in any of those day-to-day exhibitions [in which] you found us—four or five of us, or sometimes I was alone—if we had many other artists and different styles, there were better chances that we could sell these works and finance our traveling exhibitions.

DM: What could you say was the legacy of open-air art exhibitions in shaping and redefining Kenyan contemporary art in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s? What was the impact as Sisi Kwa Sisi evolved and as the struggle for multiparty democracy was intensified?

ES: The two failed attempts to establish the Kenya National Art Gallery—one at the former KCB [Kenya Commercial Bank] building and one through the Department of Culture—made it obvious we could not go on with the traveling art exhibition indefinitely; it was expensive and the Department of Culture, after seeing some of the content of our work, took away the panels. So we could no longer exhibit in the same way.

It was at that moment that another idea came to me. What if—since everything has a price in this country—what if I turned the whole thing of taking art to the people, the same way as the bar muralists were doing, and still be able to pass on messages and influence Kenyan people through art? So I started Sanaa Art Promotions specifically to do social marketing.⁹ I got NGOs to fund some of our work. We were doing traveling theater. We were doing murals all over the country (figs. 16–17). At one time, we had 120 muralists employed by Sanaa Art Promotion. In total, by 2006, we had 288 artists working with us.

What did we do? If you look at the murals—some saying, “Your vote is your right”—these are the kinds of works we were doing in marketplaces and schools. We were holding meetings and small reenactments of what we were going to put on the mural in public places. So we had theater and visual arts going together to address different issues in society.

These artists went on to be teachers and influencers in this country as far as art is concerned. We have thousands of murals in this country inspired by Sanaa Art Promotion. Many artists have formed other groups using the same model. I believe the Kenya National Art Gallery is evolving through this kind of work. And as more Kenyan people are exposed to Kenyan artists’ work, they will demand the spaces and forums needed to have these works developed, conserved, and still displayed to the majority of Kenyans.

This conversation took place at a meeting of the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) Africa group at MoMA in March 2025. The 2025 C-MAP Africa research program was conceived and organized by Beya Othmani (C-MAP Africa Fellow) and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi (The Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, and leader of the C-MAP Africa Group). Read more about C-MAP here

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The Ford Foundation declined the grant. But beyond its paternalism and its questionable assumptions about African art, Rubin’s letter reveals something more consequential. The phrase “airport art” was not Rubin’s invention; it was McEwen’s term, and one he had been actively cultivating through the 1960s as both a warning and a sales strategy—a way to stake the Workshop School, his own in-house training program and production, against a looming tourist market.² Rubin learned the label from McEwen, and he deployed it here exactly as intended: to rule that this work was not that. In doing so, Rubin did more than offer aesthetic approval. He effectively ratified the very distinction McEwen had been working to enforce in order to promote the output of his Rhodesian Workshop School.

That distinction soon became certified by Western institutions. In 1968, sculptures from McEwen’s workshop began their world tour when they were shipped to New York; classified at customs “for exhibition purposes”; and insured, warehoused, and circulated by MoMA for two years across American universities and museums under the title New African Art: The Central African Workshop School. They were exhibited—and they were sold by MoMA. Within a few years, Zimbabwean stone sculpture, often labeled “Shona sculpture,” had become one of the most visible and commercially successful contemporary art movement from the African continent in Europe and the United States.³

This essay argues that the difference between what came to be known as “airport art” and “Shona sculpture” was neither simply rhetorical nor aesthetic. It was a matter of infrastructural control. In Salisbury (now Harare), production, pricing, exhibition, and sales were initially concentrated in a single institutional hub—the National Gallery and its Workshop School. When that hub was extended through MoMA’s circulating exhibitions apparatus, the circuit widened without becoming decentralized. In this system, authenticity was not the opposite of hybridity; it was the language that secured it. Together, these terms stabilized both aesthetic and financial value across the full chain of making, circulation, and display.

The Salisbury Hub: Concentrating Production, Distribution, and Display

Rubin repeats McEwen’s phrase as if it were already common sense. That is exactly the point. By the mid-1960s, “airport art” had moved from Salisbury into international discourse, in many ways thanks to Frank McEwen’s efforts. In his writings on the National Gallery of Salisbury and its Workshop School, McEwen began defining a foil against which his project could take shape. By the time of the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in 1966, the phrase had entered a broader discourse.⁴ What began as polemic was becoming a shared diagnostic for the state of contemporary African culture.⁵

McEwen’s own definition was deliberately provocative. “Tourist art trade,” he wrote, is governed by “a base commercialization [that] controls the mass production of thousands of shiny wooden pseudo-African images. Lathes, calipers, sanders, polishers help exploit this form of art prostitution that tourists support.”⁶ The rhetoric was accompanied by photographs: sculptures cramped together on small tables, lined up in repetitive rows, and thereby stripped of aura and individuality (figs. 2, 3). The imagery did as much work as the words. Airport art was congestion, mechanical repetition, excess supply.

For McEwen, the problem was not just that artists were “heavily exploited” by middlemen, the deeper danger was epistemic.⁷ Tourist demand, he argued, had begun to dictate supply and corrupt vision. Airport art described an entire infrastructure that allowed the market to speak too directly.

McEwen’s key move in 1963 was that he framed the Workshop School less as a romantic enclave and more as a local counter-infrastructure “to develop a whole cycle of effective art production and protection.”⁸ This cycle involved gatekeeping talent, standardizing materials, reinforcing the pedagogical myth of non-teaching, creating “an international market . . . on itinerant exhibitions,” and having a strict “sales policy.”⁹ Crucially, McEwen was not trying to eliminate the market; rather, he was trying to own the market interface (selection, narrative, and placement) so that tourist demand could not directly sculpt form and category. Under McEwen’s tutelage, production, exhibition, pricing, and distribution were brought under one institutional roof, functioning simultaneously as studio complex, exhibition venue, marketing apparatus, and gatekeeper.

Artists were initially invited to work in proximity to the museum or on its premises, but they were not independent entrepreneurs. The National Gallery took a percentage of sales—initially around 50 percent—and retained authority over pricing and selection.¹⁰ Those who did not meet the aesthetic and commercial expectations would lose access to studio space.¹¹ Whatever its self-proclaimed laissez-faire pedagogy of “teachers who do not teach,” the system was tightly managed.

The crucial difference between airport art and what McEwen promoted as Zimbabwean “Shona sculpture” thus lay in the control of commerce. In McEwen’s National Gallery, production was centralized, exhibition carefully staged, pricing disciplined, and distribution mediated through a single hub. Tourist demand could not directly address the artist, now shielded in “quarry-factories” like Vukutu hundreds of miles away from the site of display (fig. 4). The National Gallery did not reject the market, it filtered it.

MoMA as Transnational Extension

If Salisbury concentrated production, pricing, and exhibition under one roof, MoMA scaled that structure when the sculptures arrived in New York. Indeed, the Museum translated McEwen’s hub into an institutional system of customs classification, valuation, touring logistics, and controlled sales.

In February 1968, six crates weighing more than 3,100 pounds arrived in the United States. As one internal memo to Rubin put it, “[McEwen] has had over 300 sculptures shipped here from Rhodesia, mainly to get them out of the country.”¹² In fact, timing mattered: The shipment arrived just months before Rhodesian exports faced an intensified embargo due to its apartheid regime.¹³ To enable the import, MoMA’s staff did more than process paperwork. Through letters from Waldo Rasmussen (Director of the Department of Circulating Exhibitions) and William Rubin, the works were imported under tariff item number 765.2000 and 765.0300, allowing the Museum to pay as little as $55 import duty on freight that it had insured for over $50,000.

The reason for the tariff exemption is twofold: For one, Rasmussen made clear in his letter to the customs officials that the shipment was only for “for exhibition purposes.”¹⁴ On paper, they were loans. In practice, however, they were also inventory for sale. On the other hand, William Rubin’s letter to the customs officials added, somewhat laconically, “These [sculptures] are serious, and in most cases, very good works of art which should not be in the least confused with ‘ethnic’ craft objects of the type sometimes produced outside the centers of Western art.”¹⁵ Customs, in other words, did not merely facilitate border crossing, it contributed to the sharpening of aesthetic policing. The import process became a site where “serious art” was administratively distinguished from its contemporary others—whether labeled “ethnic” craft or dismissed as “airport art.”

From customs, the exhibition entered MoMA’s Circulating Exhibitions apparatus, where Rasmussen’s department created the tour package: a title, a brochure, press material, and sales documentation.¹⁶ The title—New African Art: The Central African Workshop School—was itself a strategic distortion. It redirected attention away from Southern Africa and Rhodesia, names increasingly associated in the US media with the violence of white minority rule, and toward a safer, generalized geography of “new” and “Central African.”

The brochure text had a double function here, producing individuality and collectivity at once. For one, it individuated the sculptors: Each artist is named (alphabetically), with a birth year and a place of work, alongside title and medium. These biographical coordinates establish them as authors in contrast to their “airport art” competitors. On another, the same brochure folds those authors back into a collective identity. McEwen’s heavily shortened text supplies a developmental narrative that converts these artists into a single “school.” They are cast as “deeply immersed” in folklore, ritual, and “magic” then mapped in a staged progression—from “adult-child art,” through “heavy primitivism” and a “pre-Columbian” phase, “before achieving personal sophistication.”¹⁷ Strongly reminiscent of narratives around Pablo Picasso’s creation of Cubism, the result is a familiar modernist story of maturation and refinement, one that renders stylistic change legible as individual aesthetic progress—while making “the Workshop School” appear as the shared engine behind the individual authors.

The brochure also standardizes formal looking, making sure that viewers will notice the same sculpture’s features. It identifies recurring elements—enlarged heads, frontal poses, vertical emphasis, “relaxed tension,” and integrated bases—while treating variation as local content (“spirit images”) within a shared visual grammar.¹⁸ The point was not only to describe the sculptures, but also to stabilize what would count as their defining qualities as the objects moved from venue to venue.

Where text and image reinforced that stabilization, pricing gave it teeth. The brochure circulated alongside a price list and other sales materials for prospective buyers (fig. 5), and the price schedule tracks the implicit hierarchy more closely than it does medium or scale. Most works cluster around roughly $350, suggesting a baseline “serious sculpture” price, while the upper tier appears reserved for artists positioned as more “advanced.”

Joram Mariga’s Universal Spirit (n.d.) sits at the top of the list at $811, consistent with his status in the literature as an early catalyst for stone carving.¹⁹ Next come Bernard Manyandure’s Traditional Dancing (n.d.), one of the largest works in the exhibition, and Vaisi (Vais) Chimange’s Frog-man Spirit (n.d.), both priced at $679 (fig. 6). Chimange is especially instructive: Born in Mozambique, only 24, and a recent entrant to stone carving, he complicated any simple equation of “sophistication” with age and made “Shona” a shaky explanatory anchor for the categories being built around the work. At the low end, Kitela’s Head ($275; fig. 7)—a medium-size brown steatite sculpture not dramatically smaller than Chimange’s and carved in the same material. Embodying neither the vertical emphasis nor relaxed tension, its price suggests that quality was assessed according to ranked authorship and McEwen’s formal criteria more than medium or dimensions.

Photographs for prospective buyers staged the works outdoors—including images implying MoMA’s sculpture garden, even though they were never exhibited there as if to suggest to install it outside after acquisition (fig. 8).²⁰ Similarly, the cover of the brochure depicts the sculptures placed on tree trunks, highlighting verticality in a setting that would have read to many viewers like it read to Rubin, namely as “the bush” (fig. 9). These choices did quiet work: They suggested origin, authenticity, and installability at the same time, while keeping the objects visually distinct from more commercial environments.

The exhibition traveled to eight venues across the United States, typically staying three to four weeks at each stop. University galleries and museums paid fees scaled to institutional status between $100 and $500 in addition to covering the shipping fees. Pedestals were fabricated. Sculptures were drilled for stability. Condition reports tracked chips and cracks; repairs were ordered; damage was evaluated against insured value. This was not incidental administration. It was the material infrastructure that allowed the works to circulate as “serious sculpture” within a curated circuit.

Throughout the tour, the works remained available for purchase. MoMA took a 10 percent commission on sales, with an additional $30 markup on objects requiring plinths.²¹ Administratively, the objects could be filed as loans. Functionally, they operated as managed inventory: curated, toured, and sold through institutional mediation. Demand did not speak directly to the sculptor but with the Department of Circulating Exhibitions; it was filtered through a system designed to buffer the feedback loops McEwen feared. The central hub in Salisbury was geographically displaced but structurally preserved.

In this mediation, MoMA assumed multiple roles simultaneously: It was customs broker, classifying the works to ensure favorable entry. It was insurer, establishing and revising monetary value. It was warehouse manager, responsible for storage and handling. It was touring coordinator, structuring the itinerary and institutional framing. It was commissioned seller. And above all, it was validator.

Press responses suggest the system worked as intended. Reviews repeatedly echoed the brochure’s language and interpretive frame: formal traits (enlarged head, verticality, “relaxed tension”) and claims of cultural isolation, folklore, and “ancient” heritage.²² In one instance, a local art history department chair even went on the record, lending his institutional authority to repeat the brochure almost verbatim.²³ Meaning traveled as reliably as the crates did.

Hybridity, Formal Coherence, and the Historiography of Stone Sculpture

Across the primary and secondary literature, stone sculpture is typically organized through two overlapping sets of divisions: institutional centers and origin stories. On the one hand, survey accounts map the movement onto parallel, if not competing, hubs—most commonly McEwen’s National Gallery/Workshop School lineage and the Tengenenge farm under Tom Blomefield. On the other hand, revisionist histories redivide the field genealogically: Instead of an ex nihilo “Shona” flowering, they trace stone carving to earlier mission-based pedagogies (Cyrene and Serima) and then to a dispersed first generation whose biographies cluster by region (Cyrene, Serima, Harare, Nyanga, Tengenenge).²⁴

My argument sits adjacent to (and slightly orthogonal to) the standard poles of the debate. Jonathan Leslie Zilberg’s influential formulation treats “Shona sculpture” as an engineered tradition, one shaped by McEwen’s intellectual templates and by intercultural traffic rather than ethnic continuity.²⁵ Later work complicates that account by reasserting artists’ agency and the thick reality of belief and training—whether through interview-based cultural contextualization and patronage analysis (Celia Winter-Irving and Elizabeth A. Morton), anthropological emphasis on identity-making and customary continuities (Joseph James Kinsella), or revisionist re-centering of African artist-teachers and system-level causality (Barnabas Muvhuti).²⁶ I add to this conversation a third term: “circulatory infrastructure as a generator of form.” Rather than adjudicating whether aesthetic form originates in indigenous “spirit” or modernist “invention,” I treat form as the repeatable outcome of touring, insurance, photography, installation standardization, and market buffering. What looks like “style” is also a set of solutions to photography, packing, customs, insurance, reinstallation, and sale—an aesthetic that crystallized under the economic discipline of circulation.

The features most frequently highlighted by McEwen and the press make this clear. Frontality is not only a compositional preference, it is also is a media strategy. A frontal figure reproduces cleanly in brochures and newspapers and remains legible at a glance—especially when reduced to black-and-white halftone. The claim that the stand is built into the sculpture similarly functions as both ontology and logistics: It renders the work self-sufficient while making it easy to install, reinstall, and stabilize across changing venues. Scale performs as portable monumentality—large enough to command a pedestal, compact enough to fit predictable crate dimensions and touring schedules. Material decisions—shifts toward harder serpentine and granite—also read differently when paired with documentation: Durability reduces loss and repair; the rarity of hard stone supports “anti-fake” branding; and a stable material profile simplifies valuation and insurance. McEwen’s much-emphasized polished surfaces became an interface between form and paperwork: Finish registers as quality in photographs and can be described, compared, and verified in condition reports. Verticality, often treated as purely expressive, can be understood as another touring form. Upright figures maximize presence while minimizing footprint: They store efficiently, stabilize easily on pedestals, and hold a crisp silhouette under varied lighting conditions.

The installation photograph from the West Virginia University Gallery iteration makes the infrastructural logic visible (fig. 10). The works are dispersed across pedestals and a curved platform, each isolated by dramatic lighting into a discrete, readable unit. Nothing relies on a complex environment or contextual explanation; each object is made to “hold” its own display conditions—self-supporting, immediately legible, and resistant to visual noise. Even the museum’s standardized tools (track lights, plinths, open sight lines) seem anticipated by the sculptures’ compact massing and restrained protrusions.

Seen as a whole, the story is less about stylistic evolution than it is about a value chain that continuously converts risk into form and form into value. McEwen’s Salisbury hub concentrated production, selection, pricing, and narrative; MoMA extended that hub transnationally by translating “seriousness” into customs categories, insurance schedules, touring contracts, installations, commission-based sales, and the press. “Shona sculpture” operated as a circuit in which authenticity rhetoric and modernist legibility worked together to make circulation profitable without appearing commercial. Once the chain was visible end to end, formal traits stopped reading as timeless cultural signatures and began to register as logistical achievements: frontality that photographs, integrated bases that reinstall, vertical silhouettes that pedestal and pack, hard stone and polish that insure and reproduce. This is not to cast Zimbabwean sculptors as passive outputs of a system, but to mark the conditions within which they made decisions—navigating, negotiating, and at times exploiting the constraints and opportunities of touring, documentation, and sale—as part of their artistic practice. As Bernard Takawira, who was only 20 years old at the time of the exhibition and would later become one of its most internationally successful participants, put it: “Sculpting is not a train station: It is the journey itself.”²⁷ Modern art here is not a look so much as a route—made in and through the conditions of circulation.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for Figures 2 and 3 in this article. If you hold the rights to any of the material used and have not been contacted, please reach out to contact_c-map@moma.org so that proper credit can be attributed or the material removed.

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Ananya Sikand: Today we’re joined by Rajyashri Goody, who will present her artistic practice and long-term research on the interweaving of Dalit food culture and Dalit literature adapting recipes from autobiographies. These recipes serve as the backbone of her work across ceramics, installation, photography, printmaking, and performance.

Food is an important site of memory, resistance, resilience as well as a form of embodied politics, because among the many reasons that the Hindu caste system has such deep roots is that rules related to adhering to caste have been applied to basic activities necessary for survival such as eating and drinking, which are bound up in casteist notions of purity and pollution. Dalit people have been treated as untouchable and impure for thousands of years, and many are still denied basic rights to food, water, land, and literacy. Rajyashri’s work highlights how Dalit identity is being reclaimed and reinvented through acts of everyday resistance, especially relevant in the present moment given the rise of Hindu nationalism, which promotes the upholding of casteist values, vigilantism, and violence against minority communities in the name of religion.

Rajyashri’s work is presently part of the Post-National Digital Pavilion, a program developed by the Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva) in collaboration with the British Council at the 61st Venice Biennale.

Rajyashri Goody: I want to begin with the recipes (fig. 1) that I work on, an ongoing practice since 2017. I started my research in 2016, when many parts of India were seeing a lot of lynchings based on the suspicion of eating or transporting beef. At the time, Muslim and Dalit people were targeted, accused of eating beef, and then publicly attacked. Simultaneously, there were many protests. One, in particular, led by lower-caste people in a village called Una in Gujarat centered on their refusal to pick up dead animals, a job forced on this community because of their lower-caste and “untouchable” status. Across India, Dalit people are forced to take on the role of sanitation workers, which includes disposing of carcasses of dead animals. Dead cows have been a major source of food for the community because, historically, Dalit people haven’t been allowed to own land, much less grow their own crops, etc. Today, many Dalit people are resisting these jobs, but it’s very difficult because no other caste wants to undertake them. Dalit people, even if they’re going to school, etc., are forced by the system to take on such labor. I read, about 10 years ago, that all the sanitation workers in India are Dalit and that no other communities are involved in this work. As all of this was happening in 2016, I started thinking about my own food practices—given my mother belongs to this community—and asked myself: What do we eat as Dalit people?

My family doesn’t eat beef because we became Buddhist in the 1950s, like a lot of Dalit people. In embracing Buddhism, we gave up eating meat in general—and especially beef because of its connection with sanitation work. But I asked myself, What if I’m eating vegetarian food? Does that then become Dalit? What about if I share food with an upper-caste person? What about the food makes it upper-caste or makes it polluted—as is thought to happen if a Dalit person shares food with an upper-caste person. 

I’ll read a recipe from my writing called “Well Water”

Although the well
belongs to the Patils,
the spades and the shovels, 
the sweat,
the explosives 
of the Mahars 
were used to dig and build it.
You are the reason 
for water in the well.

But now you are not allowed 
to draw water from it.
If you are walking by
feeling tired and thirsty
go down the well 
to drink water
while your friends keep watch.
Make sure no one sees you.
Otherwise you might be badly beaten.

Quench your thirst 
furtively.

Touch the water.
Gather it in your cupped palms.
Ripples might form on the surface.
The water inside the earth might shake.

This writing is adapted from Dalit literature—“Well Water” from Sharankumar Limbale’s writing and “Chaanya” (fig. 2) from Daya Pawar’s. Whenever I read a Dalit autobiography, I mark where the writer mentions food or water. Then I switch it from the first person to the second to make it read like a recipe—but often one that’s impossible to actually follow. I started this exercise for a number of reasons, including the fact that I couldn’t find any Dalit cookbooks—other than Shahu Patole’s Anna He Apoorna Brahme, which had just come out in Marathi.¹ And there haven’t been any other Dalit cookbooks since people from the community haven’t been allowed to read and write. So how does one write a cookbook in the first place? A cookbook assumes many things, including access to a functioning kitchen, utensils, and ingredients, all of which is related to socioeconomic status. But there’s also an assumption of pride in one’s food, which with Dalit people is difficult because many of our food practices stem from being forced to eat leftovers, to beg, to make do with nothing—but not as a form of resistance. It’s not something that parents want to pass on to their kids. So how does one remember and gather these recipes, and should one even bother? That’s when I realized that it’s not necessary to have a Dalit cookbook in a conventional sense. But Dalit literature, a massive genre given it’s only 50–60 years old, is filled with writing about food and water. Dalit oppression is deeply connected to the stomach, so this exercise has allowed me to understand the similarities in Dalit food across India, but also the differences—and how time works in strange ways. For example, I’d be reading something written 40 years ago and something else written five years ago, and it could be the exact same story. This continues, and I’ve made 23 cookbooks so far. 

These recipes allowed me to build on other works, such as those shown in the exhibition Eat with Great Delight (2018) at the Clark House Initiative (fig. 3).² This series came from my family photos, specifically from examining them as records of where traces of food existed. My family has had access to a camera since the late 1980s, when my mother married my father, a white man who came to India to do social work, and he had a camera. Not only did he take photographs, but also other family members began to use the camera. It was interesting to see the differences between the photos that he took for work and our own family photographs of celebrations. I showed 18 family photos as they were, alongside eight recipe books. Photography, just like writing, is a tool for access. What do you do with a camera? What do you photograph? What do you do with a pen? What do you write about?

I also started working with ceramics in 2017, which came about because I didn’t want to actually cook the food—because it’s not about that. I’m not interested in making a Dalit dish, and people were approaching me and saying, “Can you cook something?” They didn’t get it. But I did want to make something with my hands. Because the reading and writing were getting to be too much, I felt like I needed to process it in a different medium. I started with bhakris (fig. 4a), rotis made out of millet, because some Dalit writers write beautifully about it, comparing it to the sun and moon, to the mother and father, to heaven and hell. I wanted to create the bhakri in a material that would last. Then I went on to make larger installations that reimagine many of the recipes (fig. 4b)—especially if they center foraging or hunting or stealing food—and processed these stories while making the ceramics. Some pieces look like food items, but there are many that don’t. Some look rotten; some look like fungus. Unlike food, or perhaps like Dalit food, they are inedible. 

Then I made Is the water chavdar? between 2020 and 2022. It’s an installation of 10,000 stupas, which look like inverted bowls, about the Chavdar water tank in Mahad, Maharashtra. In 1927, our leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar walked to this tank with 10,000 people to drink water from it. They were in Mahad for a conference on Dalit rights, and even though the government had made it legal for Dalit people to access public water bodies, they were still carrying their own water. So they drank from this tank to make a point. It’s one of the most important Dalit events in history, and yet, it’s forgotten by mainstream upper-caste India. It’s not really mentioned in history textbooks, but Dalit people grow up learning about it and going to Mahad. I wanted to make a memorial or homage to the people who went there. Also, this event was not photographed. Even though cameras were accessible in 1927, it was not considered important enough to record.

I made 10,000 stupas and arranged them to look like a square water tank (fig. 5). I surrounded them with prints of images I sourced from Google Maps. Even though images of the 1927 event don’t exist in any formal archives, Google Maps has thousands of images of Dalit people visiting the location since then. I chose 27 and printed them on transparent sheets and then pressed them into printmaking paper, which gives them a wet-looking quality (figs. 6a–c). This process allowed me to protect the identity of the people in the pictures, but at the same time, they stand in for people from the past or the future. I wanted their faces in the prints because I think people taking photographs of themselves at the water tank is special. It also allowed me to speak about the water without displaying any actual water. These images surround the installation, and then in the middle of it, a beam in the center of the space is covered with paper pulp I made from the Manusmriti, which Ambedkar burned in Mahad about six months after the original event. He burned the book, saying that it must be destroyed, but at the same time, he knew that it was more important for the ghost of Manu, which still lives on in people’s minds, to be burned and defeated.³

In Deeksha (figs. 7a–b), I printed photographs that I had taken of my family celebrating the anniversary of our conversion to Buddhism. In 1956, about six months before Ambedkar died, he converted to Buddhism. He said, “I may have been born a Hindu, but I won’t die one,” and along with him, many Dalit people converted. Our form of Buddhism is quite different as there’s no god, no worshipping of any Hindu deities, no superstition. Gods have controlled Dalit people for thousands of years. It is said that you’re born in this community because you were bad in your past life, so there’s no mobility outside of it unless your god decides differently. With Buddhism, you’re taught to learn to build dignity from within yourself. Now there’s a big resurgence of Buddhism, but if I tell people I’m Buddhist, they’ll know I’m Dalit. I don’t know how much of a difference it makes to others, but at least for us, for our own dignity, it does matter.

For Did you open the door, or did you find it open for you? (2023), I built a stupa with paper pulp from newsprint (figs. 8a–b). Ambedkar started many newspapers in his lifetime, so I was thinking about literacy, access to it, and the possibilities of it. The stupa has become quite an important architectural form. Whereas within Hinduism, we wouldn’t be allowed inside a temple, this conversion has allowed us to access and embrace ancient Buddhist sites that have been in the vicinity for thousands of years as a way of reconnecting—or connecting in the first place—with our new religion. We’re also building new stupas that are hollow inside to serve as meeting places. In Bombay and Pune, you often see white domed structures that are Dalit Buddhists spaces, and they’re occupying more and more parts of India. I built this stupa thinking about the past and the future. 

I started Give up your old habits in 2023 based on the image of Ambedkar (figs. 9a–b), and now I’m building a larger body of work around it. Ambedkar’s image is everywhere, across India—a man in a suit, tie, and glasses, often holding a book—and it’s an interesting relationship that we’ve built with it, because it’s one of pride. Yet it’s also a marker of where Dalit people live, which allows others to make judgments and assessments. In this body of work, I’m printing the same image of Ambedkar on porcelain, but as a silkscreen print, so when it’s on the wet clay, it becomes something else. Each one looks quite different but they all have hints of Ambedkar in them. I’m repeating them in the hundreds and thousands, so let’s see what happens with that.

I’ve also been doing quite a few performances over the past years. Turn Your Bowl into a Stupa (figs. 10a–d) was in Bukhara. Essentially, it was 1,000 bowls that we turned upside down. I feel like this is a strong metaphor for Dalit Buddhism. There is a Tibetan story about when the Buddha was dying . . . His disciples asked him, “What do we do with your body when you die?” And he took his begging bowl and turned it upside down. Though nobody knows if it’s historically true and given Dalit people’s association with begging, with this embrace of a new religion—we’ve also taken the begging bowl and turned it upside down and said no to the past and rejected many things. The performance began with me reading out the recipes followed by turning the bowls upside down with three collaborators. I was very excited to perform this work in Bukhara because the name “Bukhara” stems from the word vihara, which means “Buddhist monastery” or “temple.”

Everything is quiet now was a small performance that I did in Canada (fig. 11). It included four people and four bowls, which we slowly turned upside down. It started with a poem I had written about the Khairlanji massacre, a caste-based atrocity that took place 19 years ago, in which a whole family was brutally killed—and they still haven’t gotten justice. I was using the turning of the bowl as a way to slow down time and to think about this family. I’ve also been working with press photographs that were taken at the sites of this atrocity—at the hut that the Bhotmange family lived in, at the canal where their bodies were dumped. As horrible as it sounds, these photographs and even more violent ones have played a huge role in rallying the Dalit community to push for justice. It was also—as a 16-year-old—my first real encounter with what a Dalit atrocity looks like and with seeing the whole community come together in response to these photos. Though this is a strange way of spending time with them—they’re ink-jet prints, so I use a paintbrush and water to erase them, but they’re still there though certain bits are washed out. 

AS: As a way of beginning our conversation within the context of this group, which is focused on the city and the theme of infrastructures, I was thinking about Pune and Maharashtra as larger infrastructures in your practice—from the neighborhoods where you’ve fabricated different elements of your practice to your involvement with the secular art movement started by Prabhakar Kamble, Clark House, histories of Dalit activism in the region, etc. Could you speak about this? 

RG: It’s all connected. Because my parents are involved in social work, it’s not really been a choice to involve myself in these things. I think even if I wasn’t making art, they would still be an important part of my life. It has been quite special to be involved with the secular art movement, which is the art wing of a political movement in Maharashtra. And it was in spaces like Clark House, the Ajanta caves, and The Middle Way Retreat Centre in Kondanpur where these conversations were had and still continue. The last time we did a secular art movement workshop, we just wanted to get together and see each other’s practices—because we don’t often have opportunities or time or spaces for that—and to look at each other’s work, to listen to each other. Though there’s room for so much more. For example, it’s still very difficult to critique each other because if we’re seen critiquing each other even slightly publicly, then upper-caste artists or people in the art world will use that against us. They try to involve themselves in it and pit us one against the other. It’s quite exhausting. Unfortunately, we’re still seen as just Dalit artists by savarna people. I don’t think I’ll ever make work that’s not about caste, but there has to be space beyond that category. Also, if somebody doesn’t want to recognize the persistence of caste, they simply won’t. Labeling us this way makes it convenient for them to stereotype our practices, tick a box, and look away as fast as possible. 

Lucy Gallun: Thinking about this idea of space-making and how it has come through in your practice across different approaches, media, techniques, etc. . . . You talked about writing being a place, and of literacy and disseminating writing being a history that you’re taking up in your work, but also, about the building of a stupa—of creating something that’s visible in communities—especially in Maharashtra. Could you speak about this idea of a practice of space-making and what it means to you?

RG: Many upper-caste dialogues center on the fact that there’s not enough information, or that people don’t see caste, or that they didn’t grow up practicing caste, etc. Even when I was looking for Dalit cookbooks, I couldn’t find them. But then I realized that it’s just a matter of shifting my perspective; perhaps they don’t exist in a conventional form, but they do exist nonetheless, and then I discovered there’s so much in Dalit literature. I think this is the case with space-making as well, and that my large-scale installations are a way for me to spend time in the spaces themselves, but also, to really think about the significance of these spaces. Whether it’s an ancient site or the Chavdar water tank, which in photographs looks like any other water tank, is important to me. They are both big and small omnipresent sites, and Dalit people recognize and remember them. Even though the white stupas are everywhere, it’s easy for upper-caste people not to pay attention to them in their day-to-day landscapes. For instance, I’m in Goa now, and while Goa is the neighboring state to Maharashtra, and Maharashtra has always had a visible Dalit presence—there are blue Buddhist flags and white stupas everywhere—Goa has considerably less of one. But I tell myself that I have to find out what and how this looks in Goa. I’m trying to train myself to look differently. 

Ksenia Nouril: I’m struck by the materiality of your work—the breaking down, disintegrating, and bringing back together of paper pulp, your painting of photographs to dissolve them, etc. Could you talk about materiality in your practice?

RG: The materiality of my work is very important, if not the most important. Materiality, such as the texture of the paper, for example, allows me to move away from words, from writing, from that sort of language, and allows for a certain kind of infrastructure of invisible presence. The paper disintegrates, and while you can no longer read what is on it, it’s still there. I’m trying to figure out what that means and what to do with it. There’s a lot of hope with Dalit narratives, but there’s also one step forward, three steps back. A lot of the work that people are doing gets invisibilized. With materiality, it allows for that hesitation. While I can be more hopeful when I’m speaking, the materiality of the work allows for a sadness, a haziness, a blankness that paper or ceramic or the blurred photograph can communicate to the viewer better than I can.

Lanka Tattersall: Since Ananya mentioned you’re exhibiting in Venice, could you speak about what you’ll be up to there?

RG: Essentially, it was a grant to produce work that could be shared digitally and that would involve what my community means to me. There’s a Dalit girls’ hostel in Pune—close to where I live—and my parents have been involved with it for decades. I’ve also been visiting it since I was little. Most of the girls there come from villages around Maharashtra, and they’re there because their schools are extremely far from their homes—sometimes 20 kilometers away. Having to walk these distances to get to school would be incredibly difficult. I held workshops—on writing about food, about school, and on drawing their journeys to school, drawing what their schools looks like—and produced a booklet of 15 recipes and stories about finding food, stealing food, etc. The girls who participated were 13–14-year-olds, so their stories are more joyful than the ones I typically read, and I merged them with recipes that I created from female Dalit Maharashtrian writing—so they read as narratives from young girls, and time is again warped. Alongside it, the stories are also presented on video, where the girls read them out in Marathi and English.

LG: I was thinking about how you read us some of your recipes in English, and about the girls reading in Marathi and English, and to a previous session on the little magazine movement in Maharashtra that thought through the different ways that information is shared and what communities share through language, and I’m curious about how that has come up in your practice. 

RG: Until last year I was quite adamant that everything I write had to be in English, even though I can read Marathi and Hindi and I’ve accessed many autobiographies via English translations from Tamil and Telugu. I don’t see English as a non-Indian language, and historically, we weren’t allowed to study pure Marathi or Sanskrit, so an English-language education was the way out and necessary for upward social mobility. English has been an important language of access. There’s no real nostalgia for Marathi, but at the same time, there is something to be said about things that are untranslatable. When I’m reading a Dalit autobiography in Marathi, it’s different from what it is in English. I don’t want to romanticize it, so I keep it in English, because if my audience can read English, then I don’t want to create a barrier to the work. But what I realized from the girls reading in Marathi and English is that even if the audience can’t understand Marathi, there is a generative pause in listening to another language. Again, the girls are studying English; they’re not fluent, but they wanted to read in English as much as they wanted to read in Marathi. If I had robbed them of reading in English, I would have made them feel like they weren’t good enough or that they shouldn’t have been studying English in the first place, so to have their voices in both languages was important.

AS: I have a question about reading as a practice in your looking at memoirs, autobiographies, and memory texts. These writers would have been among the first generation in their families to be educated. Could you speak about these primary sources and about the format of the recipe—what drew you to it, how you adapted some of the larger concerns of the texts into recipes, etc. 

RG: I started with Maharashtrian Dalit writers because they were in my house. The Maharashtrian Dalit community also has an advantage, because Ambedkar was from this community, and it has been the force of his direct influence that has and continues to encourage the community to leave behind caste-based manual work, move to cities, and send their kids to school. A lot of the writers in this genre are male—though there are many female writers as well. But, if one was going to send their children to school for the very first time, it was often the sons who were sent. The realization that one could also send their daughters came later. 

But with the recipes . . . they’re a ploy to get the audience to read the original book. I keep things simple and, in each booklet, I’ll only include six recipes—some short, some slightly longer—and then at the back of the booklet, it says that this has been adapted from “x” autobiography to invite the audience to read this literature. I wish it was not about that, but coming from this space of people not knowing where to start, I provide them with options. Also, as much as my family is involved in this work, it’s still difficult to have one-on-one conversations because there is a lot of shame involved. There are things that people just don’t want to talk about, and I respect that. Dalit writers have written down everything that they needed to, so I decided to see what they’ve written about and to bring it out in whatever way I can. It’s almost like preliminary research for having actual conversations with my own family and others in the future.

AS: It’s also a ploy for people who claim caste doesn’t exist . . .

RG: Yes. The act of opening a book and reading for oneself has allowed me to have more interesting conversations around caste, especially compared to my earlier works which were a little more on the nose, and elicited anger and questions such as why I’m showing work on caste if caste doesn’t exist. So sometimes opening a book, reading it, and trying to figure it out for oneself allows the audience to take it in differently.

This essay stems from the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) Bombay/Mumbai initiative at MoMA. The 2024–2026 Bombay/Mumbai research program was conceived and organized by Ananya Sikand (C-MAP Bombay/Mumbai Fellow) and Lucy Gallun (Curator, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography). Read more about C-MAP here.

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The Triangle Network is a global network of artists and visual arts organizations that supports professional development and cultural exchange among artists, curators, and other arts professionals worldwide. It was initiated in 1982 by Anthony Caro and Robert Loder in New York City with the first Triangle Artists’ Workshop, and over the next two decades, grew into an international network of workshops using the “Triangle model.” Held in over 20 countries, the workshops put artists in touch with their peers in other countries and relied on donations in kind and grants for funding. The Triangle Arts Trust coordinated workshops internationally and raised funds to develop the network.¹

The following is an edited transcript of a talk by Berry Bickle (fig. 1) delivered at a meeting of the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) Africa group at MoMA in November 2024. Bickle was invited to discuss her role as an organizer of the second Triangle Network Pachipamwe workshop in Zimbabwe (August 12–26, 1989), known as Pachipamwe II, and her subsequent participation in various Triangle Artists’ Workshops in Africa in the 1990s.

I’d like to begin with an introduction to Pachipamwe—both as a project and as it was introduced to fellow Zimbabwean artists and to me.

In 1988, our first gathering, the first Pachipamwe workshop, took place in Murewa, Zimbabwe, about 120 kilometers north of Harare. By way of background, the Triangle [Artists’] Workshops had been initiated in South Africa in 1985. Robert Loder had a network of Zimbabwean friends, including Pat Pearce, a wonderful artist in her own right and an early supporter of Zimbabwean stone sculpture.

In a conversation between Pat and Robert, Robert introduced to Pat the idea of the possibility of a workshop in Zimbabwe. From there, the contact was made with Tapfuma Gutsa, who at that stage had recently graduated from City & Guilds in London and had returned to Zimbabwe—actually returning to live in Murewa. The initiation of the workshop really came about through this triangular relationship between Robert Loder, Pat Pierce, and Tapfuma Gutsa.

We were invited to Murewa, and our host and venue was the Murewa Culture House, which had been built post-independence. It was intended as a kind of blueprint that would be replicated throughout the country, although in reality, I don’t think the initiative ever really extended beyond Murewa itself. Even so, it was a very interesting proposition: to place contemporary artists within a culture house that had been conceived around localized cultural practices.

In other words, the space was primarily oriented toward music and other forms of cultural production rooted in local traditions. So the introduction of a group of contemporary artists into that space became a very interesting proposition—raising questions about where contemporary art practices might be situated in relation to more traditional conceptions of a cultural venue.

The initial workshop at Murewa had some quite extraordinary elements. We were welcomed in a very traditional sense, within a very specific ceremonial framework. Not only were we introduced to the culture house itself, but also we were introduced to the ancestors. The ancestors were told what we were doing there. That created a very powerful sense of linkage—between something that operated within a known cultural and spiritual framework and something that was, in many ways, unknown: a group of contemporary artists gathering to work together.

There were 14 artists in total. The emphasis of the workshop was very much on sculpture, because the initial sensibility was to somehow invigorate what was perceived as a somewhat moribund stone sculpture movement. The idea was that the workshop might introduce a new dynamism that could move that practice forward. So there was both a focus and a kind of urgency around sculpture.

Three artists from Bulawayo were invited: me, a painter; Rashid Jogee, also a painter; and Adam Madebe, who worked in metal. We came not as outsiders, but with a different sensibility. Similarly, David Koloane [and] Bill Ainslie, both from South Africa, and Willard Boepple, who came from America, brought additional perspectives. Meanwhile, the other sculptors and participants were deeply engaged in the Zimbabwean stone sculpture movement. So the presence of painters and artists working in other mediums introduced another dimension into the workshop.

It was very dynamic—extremely interesting. What was particularly compelling to me was the intergenerational dimension of the conversations. There was an exchange between very established, well-known stone sculptors and a much younger generation. Figures like Tapfuma Gutsa and Brighton Sango had already begun to break away from what stone sculpture had been in the decades since the 1960s. That internal tension and expansion made the workshop especially dynamic.

The workshop itself was full of revelations. It was inspiring, energetic, and transformative. Murewa became, in a sense, the beginning—the heartbeat—that brought Pachipamwe, or at least the need for further workshops and continued interaction between artists, into sharp focus.

The link between what happened in Murewa in 1988 and Pachipamwe in 1989 came through an exhibition titled Artists on the Frontline, hosted at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm. This exhibition brought together artists from Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. At that time, this was a very contentious proposition, because we were still in the midst of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. The inclusion of South Africa alongside so-called frontline states was politically sensitive.

Having met Bill Ainslie in Murewa, I had a conversation with him in Stockholm. I asked:  “What is the point of meeting our Angolan, Mozambican, South African, and Zimbabwean counterparts in Stockholm? What we need is to meet in Africa.”

Because we had both participated in Murewa, the idea emerged that we could apply for funding to expand the workshop. We wanted to create a situation where artists from across the region could come together, get to know one another, and strengthen their ties on African soil, in Africa itself.

This was also deeply tied to the political realities of the time. South Africa was still under Apartheid. It was extremely important to support South African artists by inviting them into a space where they could participate freely—something that would not have been possible within South Africa itself. Workshops like Thupelo had limitations under those conditions. Pachipamwe, by contrast, offered a space in Zimbabwe—at Cyrene Mission (fig. 2)—where artists from across the region could gather.

The choice of Cyrene Mission was shaped by multiple, layered considerations. One of these was the significance of place. Cyrene is located near the Matobo Hills (fig. 3), a World Heritage site known for extraordinary rock art—paintings that are millennia old. These works were created by migratory artists, and this idea of migration resonated deeply with us. The artists who had painted those caves had moved across regions that are now divided into separate nation-states.

In our postcolonial moment, we were trying to recover narratives that had been fractured by colonialism and war. The proximity to a site of such deep cultural, historical, and artistic significance made Cyrene a powerful location. The second element was Cyrene itself. Established in 1939 under the Anglican Church by Canon Paterson, it began as an art school for people with disabilities. Over time, it expanded due to demand. The murals in the chapel—created by successive generations of students—are particularly significant. Canon Paterson encouraged his students to interpret Christian iconography through their own vernacular forms. These murals remain today and are quite unique.

There is also a lineage connecting Cyrene to later artistic training in Zimbabwe. Many artists who trained under Paterson went on to teach at the Mzilikazi Art & Craft Centre in Bulawayo. The artists who participated in Pachipamwe were, in many cases, students of those teachers. So Cyrene represented an important historical node in the development of art education in Zimbabwe. 

Finally, there were practical considerations. As a school, Cyrene could be used during holidays. It provided accommodation, studio space, classrooms, and large communal areas. Artists could occupy classrooms, work in halls, or use outdoor spaces. All of these factors contributed to making Cyrene an ideal site. 

At Pachipamwe, the workshop expanded from 14 artists in the first Murewa edition to 22 in 1989. There was a strong emphasis on inviting regional artists—from Botswana, South Africa, Angola—as well as international participants. Communal spaces played a crucial role. The dining area, in particular, became a central social space (fig. 4). I believe very strongly that the ability for artists to socialize easily—to move between formal and informal interactions—was essential to the flow of the workshop. Studio environments were intense and focused, so these moments of gathering, eating, and conversation were equally important in building relationships.

Sculptors often chose to work outdoors, while other artists occupied interior spaces. There was also experimentation across mediums. Voti Thebe introduced a papermaking workshop, bringing in new techniques and materials. This created opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange—sculptors, for example, engaging with paper as a material.

Materials in general were limited. One of the solutions we found was to use industrial packaging paper, which came in large rolls. This allowed artists to work on a much larger scale than they were used to. Many artists did not have access to personal studio space, so this sense of expansiveness—of being able to work big—was transformative (Fig. 5).

At this stage, Zimbabwean stone sculpture (fig. 6) remained a dominant force, but it was also being challenged and expanded. Tapfuma Gutsa (fig. 7) was particularly important in this regard. He broke many of the established conventions of stone sculpture, incorporating mixed media and developing forms that moved beyond carving into construction. He worked with welders, stone carvers, and materials such as cement, building rather than subtracting.

International artists also had a strong influence. Sokari Douglas Camp (fig. 8), for instance, had a significant impact on artists working in metal, including Adam Madebe (fig. 9) and David Ndlovu. The scale of Sokari’s work opened up new possibilities for these artists.

Bill Ainslie’s presence was also crucial. As the founder of the Johannesburg Art Foundation—a key institution for Black artists during Apartheid—he brought both experience and political weight. His return to Cyrene, where he had taught in the early 1960s, was deeply meaningful. Helen Sebidi (fig. 10), introduced by Bill, was another important presence. The inclusion of women artists was a key aspect of Pachipamwe.

Evenings were dedicated to discussion. Artists brought slides and presented their work. These sessions lasted one to two hours and were highly discursive. Rather than formal critiques, the exchanges were more akin to open conversations or studio visits. Participation was voluntary, and the format remained organic. The workshop itself functioned as an intense, immersive environment—almost like a pressure cooker. Artists stepped away from their everyday lives and worked intensely for two weeks within a collaborative framework. 

The impact of Pachipamwe extended across the region and beyond. Artists from Botswana went on to establish Thupelo Botswana. Namibian artists created Tulimpamwe. And then Mbala was created in Zambia. These are direct linkages from artists who visited the Zimbabwean workshops and then went on to create workshops in their own countries. 

The Mozambican artist Fatima Fernandes came to the Pachipamwe workshop in 1990. This was a workshop that was held outside of Harare. She then returned to Mozambique and initiated the Ujamaa workshops (fig. 11). I assisted her in an organizational capacity in Mozambique.

The Ujamaa workshops were held in Pemba. At that stage, Mozambique was still in the grips of a civil war, so Pemba was effectively the only safe place where we were able to host artists. What we are seeing here is the group, and also the environment of what Pemba was like—and where we were able to host the workshop.

Another important point is that the linkages through Mozambique brought us very close to Lusophone Africa and also to South America. There were, for instance, artists from Peru and from Brazil. The dynamic of the Mozambican workshops extended into South America, into Brazil, and into the Lusophone context. This became a very dynamic and interesting example of how the interconnectivity of workshops had an extraordinary capacity to extend intercontinentally.

Ujamaa, I think, had three editions. After the initial workshop in Pemba, there were two further editions in the city of Maputo, in which I was still engaged as a participant. 

We are also looking here at the exhibition from the Ujamaa workshop (fig. 12). We had to transport all of the work from the very north of Mozambique back to Maputo in order to host the exhibition. Exhibitions were an important part of the workshops. Not always—only when it was possible to formalize them—but when we could, it was very important to have an audience view [them] and to make the work accessible and open to audiences.

We were able to do that with the Pachipamwe exhibitions as well. We mounted exhibitions through the national galleries of both Bulawayo and Harare.

The final Pachipamwe workshop at Cyrene was held as a tribute to Bill Ainslie. We were able to invite his two children, and we inaugurated a small library that still today is attributed to Bill. So the last Pachipamwe at Cyrene in 1993 had that commemorative dimension.

Bill died in a car accident returning from Pachipamwe in 1989. It was extremely tragic. It was also something very close to us, because we had been working with him intensively for two weeks. Following that, we established a remembrance library at the Cyrene Mission—the Bill Ainslie Library.

This became part of the final Pachipamwe workshop held at Cyrene in 1993: both a memorial to Bill and an opportunity to invite his two children, who are both artists in their own rights, to participate in the workshop. It was the final Pachipamwe workshop in which I was directly involved as a participant.

After that, Pachipamwe went on to have another life. It passed into the hands of younger Zimbabwean artists, who continued to organize workshops. I believe they hosted workshops in Mutare, in the eastern part of Zimbabwe. It became an initiative for a younger generation of artists—artists who perhaps had different needs and expectations from those that shaped the original Pachipamwe and its initial formation.

The workshops continued until around 1996. And then, in a sense, their necessity was no longer there. So they came to an end—quite organically. I think that this is perhaps how the workshop movement should function, that it [should come] to a natural end when artists no longer feel the same urgency or need for what the workshops once provided.

An important development that followed is how artists who had been involved in the workshops began to build their own residency programs. These programs allowed them to invite international artists to come and work in more sustained environments—spaces that were structured more as residencies than as short-term workshops.

This is also a very important point: In a sense, out of the workshop experiences came Robert Loder’s investment in longer-term spaces. First, the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, which continues to be an important site for artists’ studios, and then Gasworks in London.

The sensibility of the workshops—their dynamism, their intensity, their openness—had a profound influence on these later developments. It led, in a way, to the idea of creating permanent working studio spaces for artists. From there, the network evolved further, becoming centered on residencies, enabling exchanges between African artists and international artists, and facilitating opportunities for artists from Africa to work in places like London.

The Bag Factory, for example, remains very dynamic today. It continues to offer space for visiting artists to take up studios and participate as residents.

Personally, I have taken a great deal from the workshops. The works of my own that I have included here are from around 2000–2001. I think that the introduction to new ideas around materials and media came directly from the workshops.

Having watched artists working in metal, I became very interested in expanding what had previously been, for me, a largely two-dimensional practice—drawing, painting, collage. From there, I began to move into other materials. My interest in metal, in particular, came directly from working alongside artists who were engaged in that medium (figs. 13, 14). That was a direct influence of the workshops.

I will never forget watching Sokari Douglas Camp work. That experience has stayed with me for a very long time. I returned to it later, carrying the memory of having shared that creative environment—an environment that was marked by generosity.

And I think that this is one of the defining aspects of the workshops: the generosity of artists in sharing their ideas, their knowledge, and their space.

These elements never left me. I have included my own works here to reflect that sense of curiosity—the desire to explore different mediums—which emerged from working alongside artists who were themselves working across different forms and materials.

When I think back on the broader context—the histories and conditions that had separated these nations, these Southern African countries—I am struck by how necessary it was to begin breaking those separations down. The workshops created something else: a space based on linkages rather than borders.

And I think that this was one of the most important and compelling motivations for being part of the workshops.

The 2024 C-MAP Africa research program was conceived and organized by Beya Othmani (C-MAP Africa Fellow) and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi (The Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, and C-MAP Africa Group Leader). Read more about C-MAP here. 

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In times of danger, we learn to seek sanctuary—a place of safety and security when the world we know is under attack. Once we have regained our strength, perspective, and a better vantage point for reclaiming what was lost, we must consider when to leave the protective space that has sheltered us from harm. During the 20th century, art museums served as venues for Haitian Vodou–based works. In The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti, historian and anthropologist Kate Ramsey explores how the Haitian government targeted Vodou practitioners, illustrating how Haitian Vodou artists were deemed enemies of the state in practice.¹ However, after the US Occupation (1915–34), the Haitian government used Haitian Vodou art in its pursuit of cultural patrimony. In 2003, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, then president of Haiti, recognized Vodou as one of the country’s official religions.² Even though Vodou artworks are seen in museums and galleries worldwide, the stigma of danger and mystery associated with the practice of Vodou and the art related to it has not diminished.

 In the fall of 2024, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, hosted Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti. Curated by Kanitra Fletcher, this exhibition showcased the museum’s first acquisitions of Haitian modern and contemporary art. Featuring 21 paintings gifted by Kay and Roderick Heller and by Beverly and John Fox Sullivan, it offered a diverse range of subject matter encompassing daily life, religious traditions, popular customs, rituals, portraiture, and historical paintings.³ The artist Edouard Duval-Carrié (American, born Haiti, 1954), whose work is included in the collection, delivered the keynote address, titled “Reframing Haitian Art: An Artist’s Point of View,” at the opening reception. He discussed the significant contributions made by Haitian artists to contemporary art. However, he did not fully speak to how Vodou practitioners, whose artworks once adorned the walls of peristils (Vodou temples), have been rebranded and presented only as artistic contributors to the Haitian narrative on display in museums. In this article, I will illustrate the importance of Vodou themes to Haitian cultural expression and examine how, in times of peril, museums in Haiti and the United States may have inadvertently contributed to the ongoing silencing of Vodou.

In the 1940s, US and European art markets as well as museums began pursuing Haitian art, unknowingly creating a “sanctuary” space for Haitian Vodou art, which possesses plural narratives of the sacred and the contemporary.⁴ The ongoing relationship that developed between Vodou artists and foreign cultural institutions also provided a hedge of protection from the persecution that devotees were suffering at the hands of the Haitian government. However, their contributions to contextualizing Vodou visual art has yet to be integrated: The sacred narrative of Vodou is preserved within museum collections but remains silenced in its presentation. In this article, I will unpack the spiritual components of Haitian art and culture.

Vodou is a traditional Afro-Haitian religion blending elements of West African Vodou and Roman Catholicism. From the 16th to 19th century, in the context of the transatlantic slave trade, Spanish and French colonizers transported captured Africans to the New World. Upon arrival, these captives were forced to either become baptized and follow the Roman Catholic faith or face persecution.⁵ During this period, the western side of the island of Saint-Domingue—currently known as Haiti—was governed by the Code Noir, or “Black Code,” a set of laws that regulated the lives of both enslaved and free people of color in the French colonial empire.⁶ To adapt to these demands, enslaved Africans found parallels between Catholic saints and their own African deities.⁷ Thus, a syncretic religion arose among the descendants of various African nations, including the Dahomean, Kongo, and Yoruba.

During the Haitian Revolution, caves and tunnels served as a network of underground passages connecting enslaved communities across plantations as well as places where Vodou rituals occurred without colonial persecution.⁸ Vodouisants often hid sacred items within busts of Catholic sculptures. Meanwhile, representations associated with the two religions became visually indistinguishable.⁹ However, the 1805 Haitian Constitution recognized freedom of worship, and as the new Republic formed, the postrevolutionary government maintained Vodou as the popular belief system.¹⁰ By the 1900s, the partnership between the Catholic Church and the Haitian government influenced members of the new Haitian ruling class, who adopted their former colonial captors’ view of Vodou as a “spiritualized militancy” that challenged the government’s legitimacy and redefined aesthetic tendencies.¹¹

During the US Occupation, Vodou temples and artifacts were destroyed and confiscated by US soldiers while, at the same time, the Haitian government routinely harassed and arrested Vodou practitioners.¹² In 1928, Jean Price-Mars, a medical doctor and anthropologist, wrote the manifesto Ansi parla l’oncle (So Spoke the Uncle), in which he refutes the occupation and supports Haitian cultural nationalism against foreign interests. His speeches and writing inspired Haitian Indigènisme, a movement that embraced the ideology that the promotion of Haiti’s folklore and African heritage was key to its cultural identity and defense against US Occupation.¹³ This proclamation inspired young leftist Haitian scholars to publish La Revue indigène, a literary journal featuring articles, poems, and interviews that sought to offer a perspective on Haitian life and culture that was authentic and integral to Haitian identity.¹⁴. Haitian scholars sought to expose colonial devices, to encourage recognition of Haiti as an emerging nation, and to disassociate themselves from the traumatic memories of the previous century.

 Indigènist writers such as Philippe Thoby-Marcelin and Émile Roumer urged Haitian artists to create innovative works exploring Surrealism and Expressionism while moving away from European notions of art and beauty. They encouraged artists to focus on Haitian realities such as the local landscape, rural life, and the local flora and fauna.¹⁵ The Indigènist writers did not view Vodou as a means of achieving the recognition of modernity they sought. Having come from affluent families, many had had the opportunity to study in Europe and, therefore, had come to view Vodou as a nostalgic backdrop to their poems and essays. Meanwhile, their audience, composed of the metropolitan bourgeoisie, viewed Vodou as a rural, backward practice maintained by peasants.¹⁶ Within the framework of these movements, there was no space for Haitian Vodou artists to share their subject matter and its layered meanings. Nor was there anywhere for them to reflect on how to navigate their identity in terms of the sacred and the secular.    

The Catholic Church and the Haitian government led various anti-Vodou campaigns that resulted in the deaths of many practitioners. In the 1940s, the Roman Catholic Church and the Élie Lescot regime launched an “anti-superstition” campaign that contributed to the secularization of Haitian art. They destroyed the peristils that artists had decorated and maintained as part of their spiritual practice.¹⁷ During this tragic period, the Centre d’Art, a government-sponsored nonprofit cultural institution in Port-au-Prince, was established in 1944. Led by the American artist DeWitt Peters (1902–1966), the Centre aimed to promote Haiti’s artistic intellectuals by showcasing that their values were in alignment with the Indigènist movement. Peters, a conscientious objector sent to Haiti to teach English during World War II, was intrigued by the level of Haitian art being produced but not promoted.¹⁸ According to the Centre d’Art archives, Peters sought new talent by exploring rural communities.¹⁹ As Vodou-based artists witnessed the destruction of their works in sacred native spaces, and with lives and communities threatened, art museums outside of Haiti began to provide space and agency for Haitian art. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), for instance, became the first mainstream art institution to acknowledge the importance of the Indigènist painting movement in Haiti by acquiring Le combat des coqs (Cock Fight) by René Vincent (Haitian, 1911–?) in 1940.²⁰

An artist associated with the Centre d’Art whose work brought attention to Haitian art forms was the carpenter and blacksmith Murat Brierre (Haitian, 1938–1988). Brierre was introduced to the Centre by fellow Vodou practitioner and artist Rigaud Benoit (Haitian, 1911–1986), who initially came to the Centre as DeWitt Peter’s chauffeur.²¹ Brierre learned to create metal sculptures from George Liautaud (Haitian, 1899–1991), the father of Haitian metalwork. Brierre’s sculptures were hand-forged from oil drums discarded from container ships that refueled in Haiti.²² He developed a highly experimental style, often focusing on multifaceted and interconnected figures. One of his notable sculptures, Metamorphosis, illustrates the transformation of a woman into a bird (fig. 1). The top of this long metal sculpture features a woman’s head, while the base represents the body of a bird in mid-flight. The torso of the sculpture combines elements of both life forms, portraying them as one. While at first glance the work does not appear to be representing spirituality, it in fact depicts “mounting,” a Voudou concept referring to the possession of a devotee by a spirit, or lwa, during a Vodou ceremony. The lwa is believed to take control of the body—rendering it a vessel for movements, voice, and words that are understood to be those of the spirit. “Mounting” symbolizes the Vodou belief that humanity is physically and spiritually connected to all things. Brierre and other Vodouisants, such as Wilson Bigaud (Haitian, 1931–2010) and Hector Hyppolite (Haitian, 1894–1948), found creative sanctuary in their association with the Centre, which enabled them to express their Vodou identities through their artwork.

Unlike the Centre d’Art, Saint-Soleil was a spiritually based rural arts community that focused on tourism to promote Haitian art while attempting to create a “safe space” for the Vodouisant. Established in 1973 by Jean-Claude “Tiga” Garoute (Haitian, 1935–2006) and Maud Robart (Haitian, born 1946), the movement is based on the practice of “rotation artistique”—a technique in which students move freely between art mediums and are encouraged to favor intuition, academicism, and spirit possession in their method of operation.²³ The Haitian principle of kombit (collective creation of works) was central to the many artists and Vodouisants who joined the movement. This groundbreaking experiment empowered mountain-dwelling peasants with no prior exposure to art to explore spirituality and creativity, garnering them international attention.

As in other cultural organizations, artists from Saint-Soleil utilized galleries and museums to raise awareness of Haitian art, amplifying the material culture of Vodou. Levoy Exil (Haitian, born 1944) was a prominent artist of the Saint-Soleil movement. In his painting Female Twins (fig. 2), two nearly identical women face the viewer. They are lwa—specifically Marassas, or the divine twins. Their bodies resemble vines and snakeskin and are not confined by a traditional physical form—indeed, they are flexible rather than rigid.

However, by the late 1980s, the Duvalier dictatorship had come to an end, and due to political unrest, foreign travel to Haiti became difficult.²⁴ This caused interest in the Haitian art market to decline, and Saint-Soleil could no longer sustain its artists, leading global enthusiasm for Haitian art to wane.

Two renowned artists whose works have been barely discussed in the context of Voudou representation are Pierre Augustin (Haitian, 1945–2014) and Préfète Duffaut (Haitian, 1923–2012). In his 1979 painting Vodou Ceremony (fig. 3), Augustin portrayed a gathering in which a mambo (Vodou priestess) leads her initiates in a ceremony. The practice of ancestral worship, a foundation of many African and Indigenous religions, teaches that the African path to freedom lies in the connection one has to their ancestors and the lwas. This belief system originates from the West African Dahomey, Yoruba, and Ifa religions.²⁵ Palm leaves represent the initiate’s connection to the land and the stewardship of nature, key Vodou tenets. The group is performing a ritual to call on the lwa Ezili, a feminine spirit who personifies facets of womanhood.

In this painting, the mambo stands in the center. Dressed in white, she holds an ason (sacred rattle) in her right hand and a candle in her left. She is surrounded by female initiates who are also dressed in white, a color that indicates an initiation. The mambo stands in front of a vevè of Ezili, a symbolic representation of the lwa drawn with chalk or cornmeal that serves as a temporary portal through which the deity travels from the spiritual plane to the physical one to participate in the ceremony. Although Ezili has become visually parallel to her Catholic counterpart, the Virgin Mary, Augustin has avoided the adaptation of integrating Vodou beliefs within a Catholic framework, thereby resisting postcolonial influences.

A prominent figure in Haitian painting, Duffaut was born in 1923, when Haiti was under US Occupation. In 1944, he met the painter Rigaud Benoit, who was scouting artists for the Centre d’Art. According to Robert Brictson, although all accounts indicate that Duffaut was a practicing Catholic, his paintings of imaginary cityscapes feature strong Vodou representation.²⁶ In Vodou City (fig. 4), for example, a bustling beach community surrounded by mountains, with ribbons of paths and roads weaving throughout, allows for a reimagining of identity and community in a modern context. In the center of the painting, a mountain stands alone, possibly representing the poto-mitan (center pole) that symbolizes the sacred presence of Bondye (God) in Vodou ceremonies. The recurrent representation of an immense number of people—one of Duffaut’s visual signatures—reflects themes of inclusion and the connectivity of Vodou. Duffaut’s work implicitly explores spirituality, history, and mythology, while simultaneously embodying a broader narrative that envisions a future cultural legacy.

Overall, the interplay between sanctuary and silence in the context of Haitian Vodou art is a poignant reminder that cultural expression can be simultaneously protected and marginalized. Scholar Kyrah Malika Daniels cautions that Western thought does not understand the plural and public role of the Vodou practitioner: In defining the “plural and public spirit pantheon,” she explains that “Vodou devotees do not exist as individual selves, but rather as a multitude of souls.”²⁷ Though museums serve as sanctuaries for sacred objects, providing spaces for appreciation and recognition, they risk oversimplifying or overlooking the complexities of Vodou artists’ contributions—as well as those of other religions.

As we celebrate the resurgence of Haitian culture in contemporary discourse, we must continue to confront the enduring challenges—to ensure that the voices of Vodou practitioners are not only amplified but also understood and to dispel the stigma associated with Haitian Vodou. In curating themes around Haitian Vodou, museums must engage directly with practitioners, to invite them to contribute to the exhibition being presented and even, possibly, to serve as docents. It is essential to acknowledge the rich tapestry of history, artistry, and spirituality that Haitian Vodou embodies, securing a proper account in museums and within the broader context of global art and culture. Museums can ensure that the sacred aspects of Vodou are preserved and adequately represented alongside the contemporary aspects of Haitian art by documenting and contextualizing the design and purpose of individual objects in sacred spaces. Today, museums such as the Waterloo Center for the Arts and the Figge Art Museum in Iowa and the Milwaukee Art Museum focus on incorporating the Vodou narrative that was culturally omitted over time. Collaborating with experts in this religious practice and its cultural expression, they offer more in-depth perspectives through curatorial initiatives that focus on diverse themes and the surrounding world of Haitian art, particularly Haitian Vodou. It is my hope that more institutions will follow suit and consider how curators and other professionals can amplify the cultural promotion of sacred art.

The post The Silence of Sanctuary: How the Museum Served as a Safe Space for Haitian Vodou Art appeared first on post.

Romuald Hazoumè (born 1962, Porto-Novo, Benin) began his artistic training unintentionally. Between the ages of 10 and 12, he made masks as part of a Kaléta group.² Kaléta is a tradition mainly carried out by children that was imported to the Republic of Benin in the mid-19th century by former Afro-Brazilian slaves who returned to Africa and settled in Benin. Group members perform during popular celebrations such as Christmas and New Year’s. Kaléta places a strong emphasis on playfulness and scenic art, typically comprising singers, musicians, dancers, and mask-makers. Unlike most traditional Beninese masks, which are made from wood, Kaléta masks are made from discarded everyday objects or materials, such as plastic jerrycans or cardboard, making them more varied in shape and color and often more visually flamboyant. When I interviewed Hazoumè in the spring of 2025, he reminisced about making Kaléta masks as a youth, unaware that this process would lead him to become a renowned artist.³

Hazoumè’s special connection to masks comes not only from his engagement with the Kaléta tradition as a child but also from his Yoruba heritage, specifically as it relates to being a descendant of Lali Alomavo, who was a Babalawo (Voodoo high priest) and advisor to King Dê-Sodji (r. 1848–64) of Hogbonou (now Porto-Novo). Yorubas use masks in various rituals and cults, for example, the Gélédé, a ceremony that pays tribute to Iyà Nlà, the Great Mother, and to the role of women in Yoruba society. On this occasion, the men don masks, dance, and sing, sometimes playing satirical or parodic games, to entertain and honor the women.

Heir to these legacies, Hazoumè posits his artworks, whether created individually or collaboratively, as celebratory and commemorative objects through which he can address a range of topics. The artist prefers to use plastic for their fabrication, rather than the wood favored by the Yoruba, as it is more malleable and lends itself readily to various formal and conceptual experimentations.⁴ Since the 1980s, he has collected plastic gasoline jerrycans used by smugglers along the border separating Benin and Nigeria, which he recycles and transforms into mask sculptures, thus creating works that evoke both contemporary geopolitical and economic issues and local tradition. These containers, the same ones that he has used since childhood, remain his go-to material. For him, the geometric forms of traditional African masks are visible in the shapes of gasoline cans and other everyday objects, which he cuts and remakes into what he calls “masque-bidons” or “mask-cans.” In this way, tradition is never too far removed and can be illustrated using nontraditional materials. Hazoumè’s masks are, in effect, “traditional” ready-mades.

In Yoruba culture, each mask has a cultural, social, and spiritual personality. Hazoumè builds on this concept to craft sculptures that serve as documentary portraits. For example, he created a notable piece titled Bororo du Niger in 1992 after meeting a Bororo/Wodaabe man (fig. 1). This artwork features a face of a Wodaabe male adorned in the makeup and jewelry associated with the annual Gerewol festival, a beauty contest in which young men decorate themselves and perform the Yaake, a ritual dance to seduce young women eligible for marriage. Another example of Hazoumè’s documentary masks is Aloda from 1996 (fig. 2). During the period he created this piece, Hazoumè was researching Yoruba women’s matrimonial hairstyles, a coded language that functions as a kind of social identity card. In the precolonial era, a woman’s hairstyle commonly indicated whether she was single, of marriageable age, married, unfaithful, or experiencing issues in her household. The Aloda hairstyle represented in this portrait, with its cornrows covering the entire skull, leaving the top of the forehead clear, suggests that the married woman is at peace in her home. While some artworks dwell on ancestral forms and ritual, others—like Petite from 1999 (fig. 3)—take their cue from modern life and the artist’s personal encounters. Indeed, he conceived of Petite, which he composed using a typewriter and a cleaning brush, as a tribute to a secretary he had met in Cuba. He was struck by her low wage of just $6 a day, especially considering he had just spent $110 in a single day.⁵

By using discarded everyday objects, especially those made of plastic, Hazoumè critiques the trivialization of the African mask form since the frenzy that emerged in the West in the early 20th century when Westerners first saw the traditional African sculptures and masks brought back from the African colonies by soldiers, missionaries, scientists, and merchants.⁶ Their presence in the West, and particularly their display in museums, has given them new ethnological and artistic value, distancing them in some ways from their original ritual and cultural significance in Africa. These newly discovered forms captivated Westerners, particularly artists and collectors, and led to their increasing popularity. This growing interest also led to a rise in the trade of counterfeit objects, which persists to this day. As descendants of the Beninese mask tradition, Hazoumè’s works reflect on this frenzy for and ensuing trivialization of the African mask shape through a sarcastic touch that dilutes tradition by using humble materials from consumerist society.

Classical African arts, particularly masks and statues, have been a significant topic of discussion in the relationship between the West and Africa since the 20th century. Does displaying traditional African pieces in Western museums compromise their original nature? Should these works even be housed in Western collections?⁷ Sub-Saharan African visual artists of the 1960s were not concerned with addressing this subject directly, as they were primarily focused on pursuing modernity through new forms. This pursuit was often achieved through a distancing from traditional African sculpture, as seen in the work of Aina Onabolu (born Nigeria, 1882–1963) or Iba Ndiaye (French, born Senegal, 1928–2008). Alternatively, some artists, like Christian Lattier (born Ivory Coast, 1925–1978), and art movements such as the Zaria Art Society (1958–1962) or the Dakar School (1960s–1970s), have sought to integrate or reinvent traditional African art forms. However, this work seldom directly criticizes the Western world’s relationship with classical African art.

Romuald Hazoumè was one of the first contemporary artists on the African continent to work on the appropriation and reinterpretation of masks.⁸ Deeply rooted in his Yoruba culture, Hazoumè considers himself to be a present-day aré. In the days of the Yoruba kingdoms, the arés were itinerant artists appointed to create art for the royal court who spread their knowledge and culture from kingdom to kingdom. Hazoumè claims to uphold this tradition by spreading his artistic vision across localities where his assembled masks initiate larger debates.

The assemblage of mask-cans is the artist’s favorite technique for installations, allowing him to layer his work with meaning. Displayed together, the mask-cans unite their voices and personalities to convey multiple threads. His mask-cans converge, for example, different temporalities and symbolize the irreducible link between individuals and their history. Indeed, the plastic gasoline containers recovered and transformed into masks by Romuald Hazoumè bear traces of the memories of the individuals who owned them, featured in the touches of blue, red, yellow, white, or green paint on their surface. In Benin, transporters and sellers of smuggled gasoline use distinctive marks not only to identify themselves among each other while trading with Nigeria but also to protect themselves, since the transport of gasoline is a dangerous business. According to the artist, the color refers to the consciousness or unconsciousness of the Beninese individual, which is attached to the Voodoo religion. Indeed, as he explains: “During their childhood at home, the fuel transporters experienced Voodoo ceremonies in their backyards before converting to Christianity or Islam. Growing up in that environment, they learned that, for example, red could be a protective color. Each person thus adopts the cult color that is personal to them at home.”⁹ Red refers to the Voodoo cult of Shango, the god of justice, lightning, and thunder; blue to the cult of Yemaya, the goddess of the sea; yellow to the cult of Elegba, the god of encounters and an intermediary between other Voodoos; white to the cult of Damballah, the god of fecundity; or green to the cult of Oduduwa, the creator god. Thus, these mask-cans, through color, represent, for the artist, the faces of the individuals who once carried them. Their assemblage in installations enables the artist to tackle a variety of societal discourses.

For example, in 1997, Hazoumè created his first well-known large-scale installation, La Bouche du roi (fig. 4).¹⁰ Held by the British Museum, this multimedia work is a tribute to the memory of slavery and the transatlantic trade that took place from the 17th to the 19th century between Dahomey, the Americas, and Europe.¹¹ The mask-cans attached to the conscious or unconscious mind of their previous owners illustrate here the difficulty of obscuring the memory of slavery, as it is a deep-rooted history shared by African, European, and American people alike. Hazoumè’s artwork is a life-size representation of a slave ship containing 304 African slaves—each represented by a mask-can—who are crammed together in the ship’s hold. The artist based his reconstruction on the 1789 plans of the Brookes, a renowned British slave ship.¹² At the front of the ship, two masks are arranged, set apart from the rest of the group by a rifle, emphasizing the violence associated with the trade. They represent the characters of Chacha de Souza (in yellow) and the king of the Kingdom of Dahomey, Adandozan (1797–1818), and/or his brother Ghézo (1818–1858; in black), upon whom he depended. Francisco Félix de Souza (1754–1849) was a major slave trader and the chacha, chief under the authority of the Dahomean king of the town of Ouidah, the hub of the Dahomean slave trade. Together, the king and the chacha were responsible for the slave trade: the king captured the slaves, while the chacha sold them to the Europeans. Both were responsible for transporting slaves to the Americas, and as a result, held the captain’s position at the bow of the ship La Bouche du roi. Through his installation, Hazoumè confronts this chapter in Beninese history. According to the artist, taking responsibility in the present for the future means understanding both culture and the past, however hard it may be.

Even if it tackles a historical subject, La Bouche du roi bears contemporary resonances as it evokes the smuggling of raw materials and goods as well as modern-day forms of forced labor. Looking at his work in the present time, Hazoumè connects it to the current treatment of sub-Saharan migrants in Libya or that of South Asian workers in the Gulf countries, even though he had not yet considered those issues in 1997.¹³

In later works, such as Rat Singer, Second Only to God! (2013), the artist chose to address poor governance in modern nation-states. Rat Singer, Second Only to God! (fig. 5) depicts a pirogue sinking into a sea of mask-cans. On the boat’s deck, a white rat symbolizes the figure of the immoral ruler. The rat wears blinding dark glasses and is seemingly unaware of the disaster unfolding below. The work is a sarcastic political critique of the inaction of certain heads of state, especially dictators, regarding the issues that affect their citizens’ lives.

A more recent work, ASÈ (2024), created as part of Everything Precious Is Fragile, the first Republic of Benin pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, encapsulates the multiple threads in Hazoumè’s practice.¹⁴ This work is built with 540 plastic gasoline jerrycans to form a more than 13-foot-high hut with two opposing entrances (fig. 6). Smoothed on the outside using a process of plastic melting, the structure appears to have been built from raw earth, reminiscent of traditional architecture in Benin. Inside, the hundreds of colored mask-cans encircle and immerse the visitor in a meditative penumbra, barely illuminated by only a few beams of light (fig. 7). ASÈ was conceived as a sacred temple, reflecting the strong imprint of Voodoo religion on Beninese culture. During colonization, Voodoo was fought by Christian missionaries, and then it was banned by the Marxist regime of President Mathieu Kérékou in the 1970s.¹⁵ Despite these attempts throughout time and history, Voodoo has remained a part of Beninese culture. The artist thought of ASÈ as a space in which, upon entering, visitors could meditate, make a vow, and say “ASÈ,” which in Yoruba means “amen” and “so be it” but also “power.” The mask-cans functioned here as signifiers of the psychological connection between individuals and the Voodoo religion.

According to Hazoumè, there is power in returning to one’s history and culture, and ASÈ is his first installation entirely dedicated to traditional Beninese culture and speaks for it, fully embracing heritage as “a contemporary solution.” As the artist noted in 2024: “Today, our biggest problem as Africans is that we look at Europe, and we want to do what Europe does. But we can embrace our culture and be ourselves. When you talk about your own culture, you have a place in the world, which is not the case when you talk about someone else’s culture. Today we have to look at home.”¹⁶

A looping recorded recitation of a panegyric praising Tassin Hangbé, the warrior queen who ruled the Kingdom of Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin, from 1708 to 1711, highlights the significance of women’s role and power in Beninese society. Tassin Hangbé is recognized for having created the Amazons, also known as the Agodjé, an all-female military regiment that remained active until the end of the 19th century, when Dahomey was colonized. Through the Queen’s tale, the artwork presents an ode to women, echoing the Yoruba idiom “Iya Alachê” or “Iya ASÈ,” that is, “The woman has power.”

Romuald Hazoumè is an heir to the Beninese and Yoruba mask traditions, embracing both continuity and transformation. His work, which illustrates and critiques various historical and contemporary themes, is often also infused with a sense of humor or parody, drawing from the legacy of the Kaléta or Gélédé. In Hazoumè’s art, tradition and memory are not only preserved but also reimagined through everyday objects. By doing so, the Beninese artist positions himself as a guardian of memory and an actor in the formation of a new consciousness.

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Carlos Quijon, Jr.: I am interested in how we can think about conceptualism in Southeast Asia, and I want to consider this question in a more exploratory tenor: What is different, if there is a difference, in the development of conceptualism in Southeast Asia? How is its development different from that of Western conceptualism? Do we even need to differentiate the two, or is it more productive to consider conceptualism as an encompassing global narrative—like how it was approached by the seminal exhibition Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s–1980s (Queens Museum, 1999)?

David Teh describes your practice and your artistic ethos as follows: “[Phinthong is] a conceptual alchemist, specializing in the conversion of disparate values across apparently unrelated economies.”¹ Teh uses this distinction as a foil or counterpoint in his discussion of how your idea of dematerialization, a concept crucial in Western conceptualism, is very different from our usual take on dematerialization. 

So maybe we can start with that. If you can speak on this idea of conceptual alchemy—what do you think about it? Does it resonate with how you conceptualize your practice?

Pratchaya Phinthong: I am not sure if I have an issue with or am concerned so much about conceptualism or a conceptual approach. I mean, definitely what I have been doing somehow falls into these categories, and I have nothing against that. However, I have not been actively trying to resist these categories. From my point of view, I am interested in understanding other stuff. I am reading around. By reading, I understand the terms of the conversations and, of course, this somehow frames every production of art or the way that I practice it. 

When it comes to the works I make—somehow I do not produce them, somehow I let things produce, somehow I am more interested in trying to question my approaches to thinking than in whether I am being a conceptualist or not. In my practice, I would have people participate in my kind of ideas and thinking. Of course people think, and that does not mean that people have to be born into this kind of conceptual logic. 

CQJr: I also feel like there’s a need to keep this tension; of course people will, if they see your work and if they read about your work, categorize. Especially for art historians, there would be an almost automatic categorization. “Oh, this guy works with labor and materials and language; therefore, he is a conceptualist.” 

Most of the artists from Southeast Asia who are doing a lot of things, not just painting, not just the academic traditions of art-making, but also a lot of other things—they don’t really categorize their work as anything actually. That’s one part of the equation, and then the other part is the work’s legibility or how people react to and read and categorize your practice: “If you’re looking for an artist in Southeast Asia with a conceptualist practice, check the works of Pratchaya.”

If we don’t go with or if we somehow suspend the idea of conceptualism or a conceptualist practice, how do you describe your interests in your work? I know that you work a lot with artisans, laborers, and specialists, and I know that your artistic methods are mostly guided by things or materials that you find. How do you characterize what you do in terms of your interests? What are the usual things that you think about before diving into a work? 

PP: I am interested in the definition of things generally and for art. Why do we need art? Why should it be here for a long time? And then why should I have been born for this, and then why continue doing it? When is it going to end? If it’s not my life, then when will my art life end, and will I be going to other fields, doing other things?

I think if I came from outer space, I would choose to be an artist because artists aren’t responsible for things. We don’t have so much responsibility. We are not nurses, and we are not doctors; we are not architects. They will not come after me when the building collapses. 

So what is really being an artist about? That’s what I am so interested in. A part of what defines what I would call an artist is the work that they do, the production of an artwork. What it means, what the value of it is, how it exists, why it is exchanged—why its value increases or decreases, and if there are ways around this.

It’s a thin membrane that you can really slip in and out of without people understanding it. This really gets you a little numb, and maybe the next time you slip in and out, you will get used to it. People will not be affected because you didn’t respond to something—unless you are in the front lines of art and activism or you really hurt somebody or rip somebody off and you call that part of your practice, or something like that.

So I wonder why I am here. Life is really short, and if I leave for a long time tomorrow, no one is going to care about this, and then next week, I can just come back and be an artist again. No one would really care about this. I mean performing being an artist is also for one’s own sake.

When I started to call myself an artist, you had to have long hair, and you had to act kind of cool, and then you had to have all sorts of things. After all the years of studying, I tried to trash these ideas. When I was in Germany, the classes were really nice. Professors were trying to trash me and force me to forget about what I have. So I started up a new thing. Something that I was not really good at, and then I was trying to be good at things so many times that at some point, I felt that this is the burden of the artist, that this is something that one has to carry on. This is how you get your name as an artist, right? So, I think the problem for me is creating something that I am interested in. It is not just that I want to be good at things.

CQJr: I am interested in what you said about the idea that you can easily slip in and out of the art world—and your art practice, too, in a sense. I am thinking about this in relation to more traditional mediums, for example, painting or sculpture, and how these are very anchored in tradition. These are anchored in producing as many things as you can so that you can become an expert in them. I am wondering if this idea of slipping in and out of your practice plays a part in why you have created the things that you’ve created, the kinds of forms that you work with, or the kinds of concerns that you have—found objects, collaborative processes, invisible histories?

PP: I would describe this as trying to change the approach to the same thing—in different moments and at different times—to understand the different dimensions of it and the meaning that will come out of each approach.

For example, we all shower in the morning—maybe I just did, right? But we do not recognize how we do it. So when you go back to thinking about that . . . you did it without a plan, right? You don’t realize how you started, with touching what, and then trying to do what, and then that you’ve done this thing so many times that it has become a structure—it can be solved and quite automatic. It depends. But once you become aware of that, it changes. So it has become a little bit unnatural. So if you think, “I am realizing right now that I reach for the soap,”—I mean, for example, you have normal soap and you have liquid soap—so you shower differently. I think that’s beautiful.

CQJr: I mean, that’s so interesting—also, because if you remember, we opened our conversation with how David Teh discusses your work in relation to value and in relation to converting value from different types of economies and also the idea of dematerialization. Hearing you talk about your practice—and while you were talking, actually, I had a breakthrough, that maybe what describes your practice best is not really dematerialization but rather an act of denaturalization. We have these kinds of naturalized ideas about what art should be—your example about showering, using bar soap or liquid soap—and that kind of experience. I feel like it is a different way of processing what art-making is. We know these things; we are used to them. 

I want to ground these kinds of realizations in your actual works. If you think about your practice in relation to conventional ideas of conceptualism—or even the tradition of conceptualism and how your practice might move away from this kind of tradition—maybe we can discuss Spoon [disk] (2024) (fig. 2), an amorphous, flattened blob or puddle of solidified metal crafted from unexploded ordnances, unexploded mines that people in the northern part of Laos harvest from their fields and out of which they create trinkets that they sell to tourists.

I wonder how you approached the development of this work. From the outside, for example, for me, looking at this work, there are gestures that you can read as conceptual: There is an object that exists, and you create something out of it; and there is material labor as much as there is conceptual labor involved. But how do you describe the work? How did you start thinking about what it is, and what was your process in relation to creating the work?

And this is more of a personal interest: What came first? Did you know that they were producing stuff from unexploded bombs? Did you know that before, or did you see the object first and then talk to them about what they were doing?

PP: I didn’t know that at first. My artist friends, who are a couple, went to shoot their work in northern Laos, in Napia village. They were passing through the mountains somewhere in Laos, where they went to a noodle place where they served pho. I think it was a Lao-Vietnamese version, and the spoon was really light. That is how they recognized that the material for the spoons was different. It was not common, and then they told me about it. I visited the village with them, and we found out that there are at least 17 houses in the village doing the same thing: They had shophouses where they melted the ordnances and then cast them (fig. 3). This happened under their houses, and they used the same heat to warm their homes. 

This is how I start my work. I mean many stories come from another story. At that time, I was also trying to respond to the idea of soft power for an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).² I was trying to see how I can respond to this, and for me, the best way was to throw myself into the situation. And so I went back to Napia, and I chose one house owned by this really young couple who had just had a baby. I think that now he is already grown up. So I just asked them if they were interested in doing something with me. They said yes, and then I asked them if they could cast the metal in molds and then just make a hundred of them.

The next day, we came back, and they had one finished. We kind of liked it, and it started like that. I did not know what to do with it. I just had some idea to make it like a mirror, to make it into something that can reflect. I brought it back and gave it to my friend, who always made things with me. I challenged him to make a mirror out of it. So he had to find a way to slice it and then sand it. This became a recipe. 

All that I am saying is that my process includes a lot of reaching out to other people, to other people’s places and other people’s ideas, and then trying to see if we can do something together. And then the word that we were talking about earlier, “labor,” is in the word “collaboration”—in the middle of it. So, I mean, without these, you cannot be associated with other people; labor always appears, not just in the workforce but also in other forces. To be able to collaborate, whether through your body or your sweat . . . these are my materials. Convincing is also my material. 

So, basically, I am good at shifting and turning things. And probably that currency that David Teh said about alchemy in my practice is coming from this kind of method. It is sort of an exchanging thing, but also different. I mean, it’s crazier than that because in between the nodes, I try to make a cycle of it.

CQJr: And in our previous conversation, you mentioned that you also wanted to make use of the work’s exhibition as part of its performance and, I guess, to allude to the circulation of the objects made out of the unexploded ordnances. Can you tell us more about that? 

PP: Yeah, I mean you saw Spoon [disk] as part of the SFMOMA collection. I never wanted to exhibit in that space, and so I asked them if I could exhibit in the art shop, in the museum shop. I wanted to sell my work and to give the proceeds back to this village.

So I created this box. Inside the box, you see this metal object really shining like mercury, reflecting like a mirror. In the first run, I sold probably 50 pieces, and it was shown in the museum shop and not in the exhibition space. It included a postcard that I dedicated to the curator of SFMOMA because I had sent her the original card (figs. 4, 5).

The city down the mountain has a shophouse where there is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Mines Advisory Group (MAG). MAG helps with locating and collecting unexploded mines and exploding them as safely as they can. They hire young women and men and train them. It is mostly the women who go into the open field first, and then when the bomb locator goes off, they mark it, and then the men come in to figure out how to dig up the bomb because it is buried. 

Laos was heavily bombed during World War II. For Thai people, Laos was an ideal place for agriculture. They had hectares of green land, but they cannot do agricultural activities because the bombs are still there (fig. 6). Every time they attempt to cross or cultivate the forest, they get hurt. So they have to have some people help, like from this NGO, but there are only a few, and MAG is one of them. They have a shophouse where they display the trinkets I mentioned earlier. They also earn money from photo postcards, which they also sell in the shophouse. The postcards were the work of one photographer. I do not remember the name on the back, but they sell them for one dollar. 

I got the idea immediately after I saw this, and that was when I made a postcard. I just sent the blank postcard with the name of a curator and the address of SFMOMA, and I sent it from Laos. So the museum exhibited it along with the one that you saw.

The photo on the postcard is a picture of an old lady. She just had her land cleared of bombs, and in the photo, she is holding her first cotton harvest. She planted cotton years ago, and this is her first crop. It is in her hand. It is a piece of pure cotton so light that it flies when you release it from your hand. Then you remember that the bomb was something that fell from the sky. I liked the idea of juxtaposing the two in the box (fig. 7). In the box, you will find something really solid, something that you have to get rid of—the bombs—and then another thing that is really light, that will be leaving you immediately. So it is softness and strength. Something that kills and something that looks hopeful.

CQJr: This attentiveness to form and how forms circulate is very important in your practice. I think for the most part, this is how your works become legible as conceptualist and how they compellingly play out conceptualist gestures. How important is this attentiveness to your practice? How does this attentiveness inflect your interest in value and material and symbolic economies?

PP: I mean, it does not matter what form it is—it could be a painting, it could be whatever; but I found these, and then I designed the paper box with some people I know here, and then we created them by hand, like any merchandise.

The disk in SFMOMA is the raw material for other works in this series. Thinking about that raw material and how sanding it eventually creates this mirror—and that takes a lot of months. And my friend found a technique to transpose the materials from one form to another. When I had the exhibition in my gallery gb agency [in Paris], I was already thinking about other forms that these can take on (figs. 8, 9). I tried to see the bigger picture of the project and how it could extend.

I went to a website about phantom limbs. So a lot of people lost their limbs during World War II. What comes along with this is the phantom limb syndrome, when the missing limb still exists in your brain. I discovered this guy who created this thing called “mirror therapies.” His name is Stephen Sumner, and he runs this organization called Me and My Mirror.

I wanted to connect with him, but this was during COVID. So it was complicated to get connected, and I tried to see if he wanted to collaborate somehow. But what I wanted from him is basically nothing. I just admired the way he did things because he lost his leg in a roadside accident, and then he went to this therapy. So he got over phantom limb, and then he wanted to share the way he did it with other people. He flew to conflict areas like Afghanistan or other war-torn places, and then he went to Cambodia and he just bicycled around the country, finding people who are amputees and trying to help them by giving away this kind of a plate, just a kind of mirror that is light and easy to carry.

We cast the unexploded bombs into these plates and made the mirrors. We exhibited them with the goal that when I sold one, I would share the money with him so that he could go to other conflict areas—because on his website he asks for donations because he is doing it by himself.

This is the legacy of war. The village and other villages like it have been behind, starting with previous generations. They just cannot move on economically. In my practice, I think about how questions of economy can go through this kind of transformation.

This transformation is part of the work—from the raw materials to the objects in the box—and then it becomes an installation nicely representing phantom limbs. All the ideas are brought back as resources for the person who is going to solve the problem on the spot, who wants to stop the pain of people. So when you see this kind of man going like the dot that I have been trying to connect to other dots. Then I think, “This is the reason that I’m here, to connect this dot to others and make things possible.” It is not even about what you call me; you can call me another NGO. I am an artist doing such things. You can call me an activist or whatever you want. In the end, I just do what I am doing, and I think that this is the bigger picture. All of this is somehow giving me back some energy, so I think that this is why I am still coping and doing this. 

Typically thinking about the bigger picture looks like wanting to have bigger frames or using lots of colors or using a bigger canvas. For me, I have these bombs that I can have whenever I want because there are a lot of them to clear out in Laos. How are we going to get rid of these so that people can cultivate their lands? That is how material has been somehow found.

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Her pottery’s forms and stylistic motifs were derived from Gbari culture and shared among women of her indigenous group (fig. 1). Kwali would go on to make hundreds of waterpots and other thrown wares featuring varied geometric and figurative designs inspired by nature, including animals and plants. This was a way for the artist to intentionally incorporate the Gbari design vernacular in earthenware and stoneware as she developed as a potter. The distinctive blend of traditional Indigenous Gbari pottery and British studio pottery represents Ladi Kwali’s shift from a local ceramist to an international one. This transition—influenced by cultural exchanges occurring in Nigeria when the country was still under British colonial rule—tainted the project with uneven power dynamics that, though problematic, shaped and defined Ladi Kwali’s global acclaim.

In a photograph of Ladi Kwali taken during a pottery demonstration in England in the 1970s by William Alfred Ismay (W. A. Ismay), the most active collector of British studio pottery at the time, Ladi Kwali is elegantly dressed in a pale blue polo shirt, brown patterned wrapper, earrings, and a brown silk head tie (fig. 2). Captured deep in concentration, she is shown incising a waterpot. Kwali was known for her fashion sense, a blend of traditional and Western styles of dress, mainly via the many demonstrations she carried out while touring Europe and the United States in 1962 and 1972, respectively.⁴ Kwali’s choice in clothing belies the physicality of her work, which required that she thrust her fist into a giant ball of clay and then, while circling it, stretch up what would become the wall of the pot with a scraper. She would go on to build the upper half with thick coils, paddle the whole vessel into shape, smooth and decorate it with roller patterns, and finally, incise it with Gbari figures of different creatures.

At the time of this photo, Kwali was in her late forties and had honed her craft in the Gbari tradition of hand-built pottery. Having demonstrated remarkable mastery, she had gained not only national acclaim but also international recognition for her work.⁵ Her precision and steady hand in using sharp blade-like tools to inscribe the clay resulted in the distinct lines visible on the vessel’s surface. In an interview, British Kenyan ceramist Magdalene A. N. Odundo (born 1950) reminisced about Kwali’s attention to detail, stating: “Oh boy, it was amazing. She would point out the mistakes I had made. It was her eye that had the ability to see, form, and correct it. She had a sense of geometry in her bones.” Odundo recounted that Ladi Kwali would “dance” around her pot as she raised and smoothed it, singing in pleasure at her success.⁶ Odundo had previously recalled meeting Kwali in 1974, when the younger potter began working at the Abuja Pottery Training Centre (now in Suleja). Odundo was introduced to Kwali by Michael Cardew (1901–1983), the center’s founder and a pioneer of the British studio pottery movement widely credited for reviving the slipware tradition in England, whom she had met while a student in Farnham that same year.⁷ This experience profoundly shaped her path and solidified her decision to pursue a career in pottery.

Ladi Kwali was heavily tattooed with symbols, and as Ismay’s photograph records, her name was prominently marked on her inner left arm, where the words “Akou Mista Dase, Ladi Kwali” are visible. In this iconic image, she firmly secures the pot by its rim with her left hand while making an incision down its wide belly with her right. Geometric horizontal bands are visible on the neck of the vessel. In his report titled Ladi Kwali: Nigeria’s Potter Extraordinary, which he prepared for the board of trustees of the Nigerian National Order of Merit, C. O. Adepegba proposes that Kwali’s tattoos are an extension of the decorative motifs that adorn Gbari pottery wares: “Since Ladi Kwali had tattoos of geometric figures on her body, it is easy to identify body markings among the Gbari as the only source of her geometric designs.”⁸ The report also cites observations made by historians Sarah Riddick and Clara Hieronymus that reference geometric-patterned tattoos, notably those on the backs of Gbari women and echoed in the designs on decorative pottery and, in varied form, on calabashes, wood carvings, and leatherwork in Kwali town and other parts of Nigeria. One could also speculate that Kwali’s tattoos and pottery designs reflect her deep engagement with folkloric and cultural symbolism and with the natural world and animals.

Kwali used the direct-pull method, which involves hand-building a waterpot directly from a lump of clay, to create pots like the one shown in Ismay’s photograph. This method enabled her to form a short, plump-bellied vessel with a narrow, flared-lip neck. To make taller vessels of different shapes, she used a makeshift rounded disk to create a small pot, which she then enlarged by adding clay coils. As she built up the body of the piece, she circled it clockwise and then counterclockwise, walking steadily backward while dragging one foot to maintain balance—a technique widely practiced by potters undertaking hand-building because it helps to prevent dizziness.

Ladi Kwali first encountered Michael Cardew in 1954, a few years after he arrived in Nigeria to take up his appointment as a senior potter officer employed by the Nigerian colonial government. Cardew researched Nigerian pottery traditions, touring the country and making extensive notes about methods, techniques, clay bodies, and mineral deposits for glazing. He chose a site in the Emirate of Abuja (now Suleja) for his Pottery Training Centre (PTC), a small-scale workshop intended to train boys and men to be potters by introducing them to modern techniques that would enable them to make wheel-thrown, glazed tableware (figs. 3, 4).

It is noteworthy that Cardew’s biographer, Tanya Harrod; scholar Lisa Bagley; and curator and scholar Susan Mullin Vogel have raised issues surrounding Cardew’s engagement in Nigeria. Bagley takes Cardew and his role to task, describing him as “at the intersection of Africa and the West in ceramics where he could act as a gatekeeper between African ceramists and Western audiences.”⁹ Vogel and Harrod remark on the distinct separation and lack of engagement between Cardew and academic art movements in Nigeria, notably that of the Zaria Art Society, which was active in the 1950s and 1960s. Its members, known as the Zaria Rebels, promoted “natural synthesis,” a concept conceived of and advocated by the group’s founder, Uche Okeke.¹⁰ Natural synthesis called for merging the best of Western and Nigerian traditions. However, in Vogel’s view, many of the artists associated with the Zaria viewed Abuja pottery as old-fashioned and ethnographic.¹¹ Harrod saw Cardew’s position as paradoxical—that of a modernist who disliked modernity and a colonial servant who despised the British Empire yet no doubt benefited from the privilege enabled by colonialism.¹²

Cardew first saw Ladi Kwali’s pots on a customary visit to the palace of the emir of Abuja, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, who had several of her pots in his personal collection.¹³ Though Cardew’s initial plan was for a male-only pottery enterprise, he reconsidered this take after encountering Kwali’s pottery. With the encouragement of the emir, he accepted Ladi Kwali as a trainee and the center’s first female potter in 1954.

At the time of its establishment in the 1950s and mainly through to the 1970s, the PTC gained a reputation in England and internationally due to Cardew’s influence as an established British studio potter. He organized exhibitions at the Berkeley Galleries in London in 1958, 1959, and 1962, which proved pivotal to the recognition of Kwali’s internationalism as Cardew’s connection and the interest garnered from his Abuja pottery project led the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) to acquire one of her waterpots and some of her thrown wares. The waterpot, the first work by Kwali to be institutionally collected, is on permanent display in the Timothy Sainsbury Gallery, which houses part of the V&A’s ceramics collection.

Kwali’s success opened the door to other Gbari women potters, including Halima Audu, who joined the PTC in 1960 (but tragically died the following year). Asibi Ido joined in 1962, followed by Kande Ushafa and Lami Toto, both of whom arrived a year later, in 1963, and were active at the center until around the late 1970s. These women continued the legacy of Kwali and Gbari hand-building after Ladi Kwali’s passing in 1984. The potters were accustomed to pit-fired pottery, but Cardew introduced them to wheel-thrown, high-temperature, kiln-fired and glazed stoneware, which previously was assigned only to male trainees. As Susan Mullin Vogel has noted, “Kiln firing was an exclusively male occupation, while open bonfire was practiced mainly by women and universally used in African traditions where it had a meager failure rate.” While the techniques used by women “have been characterized as technically simple,” Vogel points out that this method requires a hyper-refined combination of a specific clay body, fuel, and firing technique as well as certain atmospheric conditions—a formula derived from local experimentation mainly by generations of women, in other words, through regional and Indigenous know-how.¹⁴

Kwali created both hand-built vessels and thrown wares following Cardew’s method, but it was Cardew’s suggestion that she glaze her traditional Gbari-style waterpots with Chun or tenmoku high-temperature glazes (fig. 5), a finish never before used by Gbari potters.¹⁵ This hybridization transformed her pots from functional vessels to celebrated decorative art objects. As the scholar Emman Okunna observes: “This transition from tradition to modernity was a significant turning point in Ladi Kwali’s life and ceramic art practice. It marked an essential interface between the two domains in this iconic personality’s historical art experience. Ladi Kwali now saw herself in an entirely new domain, a testament to her adaptability and innovation.”¹⁶ Even so—and though she was the PTC’s star potter—Kwali earned less than her male counterparts, as educational qualifications determined wages, and she had received no formal education. This discrepancy reflected the wage structure imposed on the center by the Nigerian colonial government, which determined and enforced salary bands.¹⁷

Kwali’s adaptability, innovation, and agency, as Okunna observes, are evident in a portrait by Doig Simmons taken in 1959 (fig. 6). In Simmons’s black-and-white photograph, Ladi Kwali stands confidently in front of the main kiln, which can be seen at the center. She is dressed in a simple sleeveless sundress and her signature head tie. An unglazed terra-cotta waterpot sits at her feet, indicating that it is on its way to being glazed and then fired in the kiln behind her, a process that was, by then, her usual practice. We see a confident and aware maker standing proudly by her work, one of a series of waterpots adapted from Gbari pot-making tradition. Based on her working methods throughout her career, she clearly approached her “modern” stoneware ceramics not by sketching or inventing unique forms but rather through the creative processes she had learned in her village.

The portraits of Kwali discussed in this essay provide a lens for re-reading her agency as an astute, self-assured Gbari woman potter framed but not defined and contained by the colonial structure that brought about her international fame. As Marla C. Berns observes, although women are the primary producers of pottery in Africa, scholars have seldom attributed the creation of archaeologically recovered figurative ceramic sculptures to them. Moreover, the question of authorship regarding these esteemed ceramics has rarely been explored.¹⁸ It is crucial to consider Kwali’s identity as rooted in place and context and in who she was before and after her interactions with Cardew and his Abuja pottery project. In addressing the methodological challenges of confronting object histories, one must consider Kwali’s Gbari identity and agency, which are imbued in the objects she left behind. Additionally, Kwali’s pottery embodies a pivotal moment of transformation and hybridity, merging Indigenous Nigerian ceramic traditions with British studio pottery and modern Western techniques.

In 2007, Kwali and her pots were immortalized on the reverse side of the Nigerian 20-naira bank note. This national tribute goes to show how important the artist is in Nigeria. Yet, just the same, historical accounts of her artistic journey remain scarce in comparison to her stature. Little public information exists about Kwali’s later years, and no known recorded or printed interviews document her experiences in Suleja and beyond. Her presence within Nigerian Modernism remains paradoxical—both absent and present—primarily overlooked by intellectuals of the period, who were no doubt aware of her. Still, it is peculiar that she is not cited as an influence given the overlapping period. Kwali’s works resonate with concepts of natural synthesis put forward by members of the Zaria Art Society, calling for the merging of the best of Western and Nigerian traditions, forms, techniques, and artistic ideas into a hybrid art-making practice and conceptual framework. Ceramist and scholar Professor Ozioma Onuzulike has argued for recognition of Kwali and other workshop-trained Indigenous female potters who used natural synthesis to achieve works that have contributed to the discourse on African modernism.¹⁹ This marginalization was arguably shaped by Cardew’s deliberate detachment from the broader Nigerian artistic discourse and the fact that his pottery project upheld a colonial vision.

My recent trip to Kwali, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and Suleja in northern Nigeria to speak to Kwali’s surviving family members raised more questions than answers about how she is remembered. Only a few photographs of the artist and press clippings about her remain in her family archive (fig. 7). Public sculptures, street signs, and even a convention center named after her exist. However, aside from these visible civic and public markers, the most poignant reminders are the anecdotes. There are oral histories recounting stories of visitors from far and wide whom she welcomed into her home and of the critical support she provided to her family members during her lifetime. Additionally, Kwali’s descendants in Suleja hope that one day, her home will be transformed into a heritage site where visitors from around the world can once again come to learn about her(fig. 8). Kwali’s legacy—especially her waterpots—is rooted in everyday life. Easily recognizable as containers, carriers, and vessels that once simply held water, they nonetheless carry memories of an incredible potter whose work continues to transcend space and time. Ladi Dosei Kwali’s pots remain testaments to her personal story and its connection to town and country.

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The following essay by art historian Talita Trizoli reveals the influence of a Catholic and spiritual pathos in the work of influential though relatively unknown Brazilian critic Maria Eugênia Franco. Taking as case studies Franco’s writings on artists such as Samson Flexor, Henri Michaux, and Mestre Nosa and artworks attributed to unrecognized Baroque artisans, Trizoli establishes a direct relationship between Catholic motifs and the development of modernity in Brazilian art and identities.

Religion is eminently social. Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain, or recreate certain mental states in those groups. —Emile Durkheim¹

Between 1948 and 1954, Brazilian art critic and curator Maria Eugênia Franco (1915–1999) had a regular column in O Estado de São Paulo, a real achievement given this newspaper, and several others, was marked by misogyny and conservative values.²Over the course of seven years, Franco offered commentary and analyses, predominantly about the art circuit in São Paulo, in addition to lucid criticism of the systemic aspect of the milieu and formal observations on the work of specific artists, most of whom were contemporary.³

Still relatively unfamiliar to the general public, Franco’s critical writings allow us to understand miscellaneous efforts in the modern Latin American context to reconcile form and content—a conflict inherent to aesthetic programs in their various versions and a recurring theme in Brazilian art criticism.⁴

A large part of Franco’s critical work deals with artists and artistic events on the so-called Rio–São Paulo axis, raising structural issues surrounding the organization of the Brazilian art circuit, mainly as it relates to audience formation and cultural institutions.⁵ In terms of the selection of articles commented upon here, the content concerns sacred themes explored by Brazilian artists not only as an object of formal exercise but also as a representation of an affective memory linked to the construction of national identity, since figures dear to popular culture and religious festivals, in this case saints and passages from the life of Christ, have been chosen to allegorize reality in Brazil. 

Embedded in the constitution of Brazilian national identity, the mystical narratives of Catholicism, a fundamental element of Portuguese colonization, formed a set of folkloric entities in the collective imagination that mixed with the mythologies of the various original Indigenous peoples and the shamanic practices of the African subjects exiled by the slave regime. Although the poetic and violent encounter between these cultures generated a rich symbolic ensemble, the Catholic-Apostolic-Roman structure remained the organizing imperative of Brazilian culture.⁶

Coming from a Catholic family, like most of the Brazilian population at the time, Franco was familiar with Christian religious “mysteries” even though she was not a practicing Catholic.⁷Indeed, from the Barroco Mineiro, or Baroque of Minas Gerais, chosen as the first artistic manifestation of the Brazilian spirit, to the religious calendar of collective festivals and the obvious predominance of biblical passages in the history of art, some knowledge of Christian mysticism was almost inevitable.⁸

For Franco, the mystery of the Catholic religious experience emerged as a theme already widely recognized in the artistic sphere rather than as an element of amazement or one of discovery. This aspect can also be seen in the artistic production of her sister, painter Maria Leontina (1917–1984), especially in a series of abstracted representations of Saint Anne (figs. 1, 2) and in banners she presented as objects of scrutiny for the application of chromatic nuance and composition inspired by Giorgio Morandi.⁹

Committed to remaining professionally impartial, Franco did not write frequently about the work of her sister or brother-in-law, Milton Dacosta (1915–1988), who was also a painter. (Rather, her exchanges with both frequently took place in person or through letters). She dedicated some of her columns, however, to the work of partner artists in which the sacred theme is manifested alongside formal investigation and dramatic Christian narratives (the mystical pathos), which are mobilized for the sentimental education of the spectator.¹⁰Of these texts, an analysis of artist Samson Flexor (1907–1971) and his work in the article “Flexor e a arte religiosa” (“Flexor and Religious Art”) is significant.¹¹

Flexor was born in Moldova, in the city of Soroca, but after traveling through Brussels and Paris, he settled permanently in Brazil in 1948. Having earned a degree in painting from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studying art history at the Sorbonne—in addition to holding a degree in chemistry, which he had previously earned in Brussels—Flexor was an artist who was intellectual about his own work.¹²He is considered among the pioneers of abstraction in Brazil, mainly after critical contact with Belgian art critic Léon Degand (1907–1958), first director of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM) and an advocate of abstraction. It is important to highlight that Flexor was in no way a defender of a dogmatic and protocol-based artistic practice; indeed, he believed in the affective and dramatic dimensions of art—as can be seen in his clashes with members of the Concrete art movement, whom he nicknamed “Concretinos” (a mixture of “concrete” and “cretins” in Portuguese).¹³

It is from this sense of religious pathos that Franco approached Flexor’s work. In her article about the artist, Maria Eugênia highlights two solo exhibitions on display in São Paulo, one at Galeria Domus, the other at MAM. She foregrounds Flexor’s technical dexterity and emphasizes his character as a “subject painter,” highlighting the eleven paintings in the series Composições sobre temas da Paixão (Compositions on Themes of the Passion) at MAM. These canvases, with their Cubo-Expressionist treatment of forms and their icy hues, warm blues, and earth tones, represent passages from Christ’s martyrdom, evoking the most moving moments of his suffering and cathartic self-denial (figs. 3–5). 

It is noteworthy that Flexor was born into a Jewish family but converted to Catholicism in France. After the death of his first wife, Tatiana Yablokof, during childbirth, the painter received spiritual guidance and professional support from local priests, who commissioned the grieving artist to produce several frescoes based on biblical events. From then on, biblical passages, with an emphasis on Christ’s crucifixion at Calvary, would be a recurring theme in his work, even in later life, when his artistic focus became more personal (though nonetheless tragic).¹⁴Maria Eugênia comments in her article on the artist: 

Catholic culture has been predominant in Brazil since the territory was colonized, even determining its later structure as an empire and democracy—despite the modern premise of a secular state within the Enlightenment model.¹⁶As far as the artistic world is concerned, the use of mystical drama in sacred art is both a means of catalyzing attention and a strong empathic device in the narrative of suffering and sacrifice in the name of transcendence—not for nothing, the choice of certain passages and figures from the Bible to consolidate values or reformulate contingencies is recurrent in representations. I consider this condition an example of the intense presence in Brazilian culture of variants of Our Lady—widely used as a resource for appeasing and welcoming the suffering of the population—but also the symbolic correlation of Christ martyred on the cross with the figure of Brazilian national hero Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, who in 1792, became the only member of the revolutionary Inconfidência Mineira to be arrested, tried for treason, and publicly dismembered.¹⁷

The search for a dramatic dimension to the Christian mystery is a problem inherent to Maria Eugênia Franco’s critical analyses of artists other than Flexor, but without the loss of focus on the formal and systemic structuring aspect of the milieu. These dramatic, almost passionate elements identified by not only Franco but also fellow writers such as Geraldo Ferraz (1905–1979) and Clarival do Prado Valladares (1918–1983) are reminiscent of the expressionist influence of immigrant artists established in Brazil and their pupils.¹⁸ Moreover, they are applied to the thematic treatment of scenes typical of the country, as is the case in works by Lasar Segall (1889–1957), Cândido Portinari (1903–1962), and Oswaldo Goeldi (1895–1961), among others. Its use by Flexor, but also by painter and poet Henri Michaux (1899–1984), as we will see later through Franco’s perspective, is linked to the experience of collective human suffering during World War II. 

In Franco’s article about Henri Michaux’s watercolors, written during her French stay, one can see by the use of adjectives and a certain psychologizing analysis, her effort to narrate the dimension of anguish and fascinating displacement in the artist’s images, with their washes and autonomist drawing techniques (figs. 6, 7).¹⁹Michaux, of Belgian origin and naturalized French, is still known today for his dramatic forms and investigations of human suffering, which are poetically enhanced by manifestations of the unconscious in the form of dreams and numbing delusions. Portraits and self-portraits made with watercolor stains and thin, tense lines of ink that overlap, forming a suspended plot on the white of the paper, indicate the artist’s proximity to Surrealism or even Dadaism. However, the artist distanced himself from the uncontrolled aspects of these isms, as he was interested in the fissure of human subjectivity, the feeling of lack of belonging intensified by the experience of war.²⁰
Franco describes the paintings on display at the gallery as follows: 

It is interesting that in her articles on Flexor and Michaux, Franco emphasizes the relationship between studies of form and those of composition as they pertain to the dramatic and psychic demands of subject matter. This theme was already present in 1944 in her article²²on the statuary ensemble in Ouro Preto by Antônio Francisco Lisboa (popularly known as Aleijadinho, 1738–1814), her first aesthetic essay, and it is repeated in later articles on the mythical artist and the importance of the Baroque in the constitution of Brazil’s colonial artistic fortune.²³  

Referencing the studies of Mário de Andrade (1893–1945), pioneer in identifying the Baroque of Minas Gerais as the first sui generis Brazilian artistic style, Franco points out the artistic and historical importance of the figure of the crippled craftsman, who suffered like Christ, and calls for a greater presence of his work and state support for its circulation.²⁴In a typed manuscript now in the personal archive of her nephew Alexandre Dacosta, Franco describes an unofficial tour of the Minas Gerais museum complex in 1944.²⁵She writes:

Franco continues her essay with an emotional and qualitative description of the oratorio in question, but what is striking about this youthful text is the description of the scourging of Jesus on the Way of the Cross. As a dramatic, political, and formal exercise, this theme is an exhaustive one for artists, and Franco addressed it repeatedly in her criticism.²⁷The passages of suffering, violence, commotion, and welcome, consisting of fourteen stations, provide a narrative of emotional purging for the faithful, whereby the aim is both to grow closer to the divine through mystical experience and to obtain indulgence for moral failings—in this sense, the formal solution of the unknown artist of the oratory, of begging, of carving the small polychrome figures on a blue background in a narrative of ascendancy through the sacrifice of the son of God, reinforces the idea of ascension and transcendence through the experience of violence.

In 1969, Franco undertook her last public analysis of a sacred and popular representation of Christ’s Calvary, this time not in a newspaper column but rather in an essay published in a limited edition of woodcuts by Mestre Nosa.²⁸The artist from Ceará, whose baptismal name was Inocêncio Miguel da Costa Nick (1897–1983), had recently arrived in São Paulo and was a prominent figure in the movement for the marketing and appreciation of popular culture. His set of fifteen prints, first commissioned by artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo (1929–2017) and then published in two limited editions—the first in France in 1965 by editor Robert Morel through Esmeraldo, and the second in 1969 by editor Julio Pacello—fueled that frisson of the “primitive,” “innocent,” and “pure” of so-called popular art. Franco’s text reinforces these notions of vernacular artistic production but adds her own set of aesthetic predicates referring to the sacred and formal sphere:

It is interesting that in her critical analysis of the oratorio and of Nosa’s woodcuts, Franco emphasizes the ingenuity of the formal solutions in the face of so-called simplistic representations of a classic and consecrated religious theme in the Christian context. The Way of the Cross and the suffering endured by Jesus have historically been mobilized as moralizing devices for the masses, among whom material self-denial and physical submission constitute an imperative condition for the ascension of the spirit—especially amid economic fragility and political turmoil, as was the case during Franco’s time as an arts professional in the critical and curatorial sectors. Whether under the dictatorial New State (Estado Novo; 1937–45) during the rule of Getúlio Vargas or under later military dictatorship (1964–85), artistic productions of a religious nature had, dubiously, the public function of cultural familiarity and of creating critical metaphors for social causes.

However, with regard to this set of articles by Maria Eugênia Franco, religious themes in Brazilian modern art are a bastion of the constitution of national identity, an aspect of obsession in the late modern generation of the Return to Order. Franco seems to have made a circle of eternal return, albeit indirectly and tangentially, to the mystical Christian realm amid her own struggles to construct the artistic environment and the aesthetic-educational formation of the public³⁰ (synthesis of form with content, synthesis of artistic investigative practice, and the dramatization of affections), even though today she is barely remembered by her peers.

Portuguese

O seguinte ensaio da historiadora da arte Talita Trizoli revela a influência de um pathos católico e espiritual na obra da influente, embora relativamente desconhecida, crítica brasileira Maria Eugênia Franco. Tomando como estudos de caso os escritos de Franco sobre artistas como Samson Flexor, Henri Michaux e Mestre Nosa e obras atribuídas a artesãos barrocos não reconhecidos, Trizoli estabelece uma relação direta entre motivos católicos e o desenvolvimento da modernidade na arte e identidades brasileiras.

[…] la religion est une chose éminemment sociale. Les représentations religieuses sont des représentations collectives qui expriment des réalités collectives; les rites sont des manières d’agir qui ne prennent naissance qu’au sein des groupes assemblés et qui sont destinés à susciter, à entretenir ou à refaire certains états mentaux de ces groupes³¹ ― Émile Durkeim 

Entre 1948 e 1954, a crítica de arte, gestora e curadora brasileira Maria Eugênia Franco (1915–1999) teve uma coluna regular de crítica de arte no jornal O Estado de São Paulo, um verdadeiro feito, considerando que este jornal, assim como vários outros, era marcado pela misoginia e pelos valores conservadores.³²Ao longo de sete anos, Franco teceu comentários e análises predominantemente sobre o circuito artístico de artes na capital paulista, além de apresentar críticas lúcidas no aspecto sistêmico do meio e observações formais sobre a produção artística, em sua maioria, contemporânea.³³

Ainda pouco conhecida do grande público, a produção crítica de Franco possibilita compreender os esforços de miscelânea entre forma e conteúdo no âmbito moderno latino-americano, um conflito inerente aos programas estéticos em suas diversas versões e um tema recorrente na crítica de arte brasileira.³⁴

Grande parte da obra crítica de Franco aborda artistas e eventos artísticos do chamado eixo Rio-São Paulo, levantando questões estruturais em torno da organização do circuito artístico brasileiro, principalmente no que se refere à formação de público e às instituições culturais.³⁵Em termos da seleção dos artigos aqui comentados, o conteúdo diz respeito a temas sagrados explorados pelos artistas brasileiros não apenas como objeto de exercício formal, mas também como representação de uma memória afetiva vinculada à construção da identidade nacional, uma vez que figuras caras à cultura popular e às festas religiosas, no caso santos e passagens da vida de Cristo, foram escolhidas para alegorizar a realidade brasileira.³⁶

Incrustadas na constituição da identidade nacional brasileira, as narrativas místicas do catolicismo, elemento fundamental da colonização portuguesa, formaram um conjunto de entidades folclóricas no imaginário coletivo que se misturam às mitologias dos diversos povos indígenas originários e às práticas xamânicas dos súditos africanos exilados pelo regime escravista. Embora o encontro poético e violento entre essas culturas tenha gerado um rico conjunto simbólico, a estrutura católico-apostólico-romana permaneceu como o imperativo organizador da cultura brasileira.

Vinda de uma família católica, como a maioria da população brasileira da época, Franco estava familiarizada com os “mistérios” religiosos cristãos, embora não fosse católica praticante.³⁷De fato, do Barroco Mineiro, ou Barroco de Minas Gerais, escolhido como a primeira manifestação artística do espírito brasileiro, ao calendário religioso de festas coletivas e à óbvia predominância de passagens bíblicas na história da arte, algum conhecimento do misticismo cristão era quase inevitável.³⁸

Para Franco, o mistério da experiência religiosa católica surgiu como um tema já amplamente reconhecido na esfera artística, em vez de um elemento de espanto ou descoberta. Esse aspecto também pode ser visto na produção artística de sua irmã, a pintora Maria Leontina (1917–1984), especialmente em uma série de representações abstratas de Santa Ana (figs. 1, 2) e em faixas que ela apresentou como objetos de escrutínio para a aplicação de nuance cromática e composição inspiradas por Giorgio Morandi.³⁹

Comprometida em permanecer profissionalmente imparcial, Franco não escrevia frequentemente sobre o trabalho de sua irmã ou cunhado, Milton Dacosta (1915–1988), que também era pintor. (Em vez disso, suas trocas com ambos frequentemente ocorriam pessoalmente ou por meio de cartas). Ela dedicou algumas de suas colunas, no entanto, ao trabalho de artistas parceiros nos quais o tema sagrado se manifesta ao lado da investigação formal e das narrativas cristãs dramáticas (o pathos místico), que são mobilizadas para a educação sentimental do espectador.⁴⁰Destes textos, destaca-se a análise do artista Samson Flexor (1907–1971) e sua obra no artigo “Flexor e a arte religiosa”.⁴¹

Flexor nasceu na Moldávia, na cidade de Soroca, e após trânsito por Bruxelas e Paris, estabeleceu-se em definitivo no Brasil em 1948. Com formação em pintura pela Belas Artes de Paris, mas também com passagens pela Sorbonne na área de história, e uma formação prévia em Química em Bruxelas, Flexor foi um artista intelectualizado sobre a própria obra.⁴²Ele é considerado um dos percursores da abstração no Brasil, principalmente após contato crítico com o primeiro diretor do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, o belga Léon Degan (1907-1958), partidário da abstração. É Importante frisar que o artista não era de modo algum defensor de uma prática artística dogmática e protocolar, pois acreditava na dimensão afetiva e dramática da obra de arte – como se pode ver nos seus confrontos com os membros do movimento da arte concreta, a quem apelidou de “Concretinos”.⁴³

É a partir desse dispositivo dramático que Franco se aproxima da obra de Flexor. No referido artigo de 25 de abril de 1940, Maria Eugênia nomeia duas mostras individuais do artista em cartaz na cidade, uma na galeria Domus, outra no Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Ela coloca em primeiro plano sua destreza técnica e pontuar seu caráter de “pintor de assunto”, mas dando destaque ao conjunto presente no MAM, “Composições sobre temas da Paixão”. Essas telas, com seu tratamento cubo-expressionista das formas e seus tons gelados, azuis quentes e tons de terra, representam passagens do martírio de Cristo, evocando os momentos mais comoventes de seu sofrimento e autonegação catártica (figs. 3–5).

Vale notar que, Flexor nasceu em uma família judia, mas converteu-se ao catolicismo na França após a morte de sua 1ª esposa no parto, Tatiana Yablokof, e o respectivo acolhimento espiritual e profissional de padres, os quais encomendaram diversos afrescos sobre eventos bíblicos para o artista em luto. As passagens bíblicas de Cristo, com ênfase em seu calvário, seriam então um tema recorrente para Flexor, mesmo quando o artista adentra a uma produção tardia mais pessoal, mas também trágica.⁴⁴ Maria Eugênia comenta que:

A predominância imperativa da cultura católica no Brasil ocorre desde a colonização do território, determinando inclusive sua posterior estruturação como império e democracia — apesar da premissa moderna de um Estado laico dentro do modelo iluminista.⁴⁶No que se refere ao mundo artístico, o uso do drama místico na arte sacra é ao mesmo tempo um meio de catalisar a atenção e um forte recurso empático na narrativa do sofrimento e do sacrifício em nome da transcendência — não à toa, a escolha de certas passagens e figuras da Bíblia para consolidar valores ou reformular contingências é recorrente nas representações. Podemos considerar como exemplo dessa condição a intensa presença na cultura brasileira de variantes de Nossa Senhora — amplamente utilizadas como recurso para apaziguar e acolher o sofrimento da população —, mas também da correlação simbólica de Cristo martirizado na cruz com a figura do herói nacional brasileiro Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, conhecido como Tiradentes, que, em 1792, tornou-se o único integrante da revolucionária Inconfidência Mineira a ser preso, julgado por traição e esquartejado publicamente.⁴⁷

A busca por uma dimensão dramática no mistério cristão é objeto que tangencia as analises críticas de Maria Eugênia Franco em alguns artistas para além de Flexor, mas sem a perda de foco do aspecto estruturante formal e sistêmico do meio. Esses elementos dramáticos, quase apaixonados, identificados não apenas por Franco, mas também por outros escritores como Geraldo Ferraz (1905–1979) e Clarival do Prado Valladares (1918–1983) lembram a influência expressionista de artistas imigrantes estabelecidos no Brasil e seus alunos.⁴⁸Além disso, são aplicadas ao tratamento temático de cenas típicas do país, como é o caso de obras de Lasar Segall (1889–1957), Cândido Portinari (1903–1962) e Oswaldo Goeldi (1895–1961), entre outros. Seu uso por Flexor, mas também pelo pintor e poeta Henri Michaux (1899–1984), como veremos mais adiante pela perspectiva de Franco, está ligado à experiência do sofrimento humano coletivo durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial.

No artigo de Franco sobre as aquarelas de Henri Michaux, escrito durante sua estadia na França, percebe-se, pelo uso de adjetivos e uma certa análise psicologizante, seu esforço em narrar a dimensão de angústia e deslocamento fascinante nas imagens da artista, com suas aguadas e técnicas de desenho autonomistas (figs. 6, 7).⁴⁹Michaux, de origem belga e naturalizado francês, é conhecido até hoje por suas formas dramáticas e investigações sobre o sofrimento humano, poeticamente potencializadas por manifestações do inconsciente em forma de sonhos e delírios entorpecentes. Retratos e autorretratos feitos com manchas de aquarela e linhas finas e tensas de tinta que se sobrepõem, formando uma trama suspensa sobre o branco do papel, indicam a proximidade do artista com o surrealismo ou mesmo com o dadaísmo. No entanto, o artista se distanciou dos aspectos descontrolados desses ismos, pois se interessava pela fissura da subjetividade humana, o sentimento de falta de pertencimento intensificado pela experiência da guerra.⁵⁰Franco descreve as pinturas em exposição na galeria da seguinte forma:

É pertinente notar que em ambos os artigos sobre Flexor e Michaux, Franco coloca ênfase na interlocução entre os estudos de forma e composição em relação a demanda dramática e psíquica do tema dos artistas. Esse aspecto já se encontra presente no primeiro ensaio estético da autora em 1944⁵² sobre o conjunto estatuário na cidade de Ouro Preto de Antonio Francisco Lisboa (1738-1814), popularmente conhecido como o Aleijadinho de Vila Rica, e que se repetirá nos artigos posteriores sobre o mítico artista e a importância do barroco brasileiro na constituição da fortuna artística colonial no Brasil.⁵³

Tendo como referência nomeada os estudos de Mario de Andrade (1893-1945), precursor do indicativo do barroco mineiro como a primeira manifestação artística brasileira sui generis, Franco aponta tanto a importância artística e histórica da figura do artesão aleijado, sofredor como cristo, clamando juntamente por uma maior presença e apoio estatal para a circulação de suas obras.⁵⁴Em texto datilografado presente no acervo pessoal de seu sobrinho, há o seguinte material produzido dentro de uma excursão extraoficial de averiguação do complexo mineiro de museus⁵⁵ em 1944: 

Franco segue com um descritivo afetivo e qualitativo do oratório em questão, mas o que chama atenção nesse texto de juventude é a repetição do episódio dos flagelos de Jesus na Via Sacra. Como exercício dramático, político e formal, este tema é exaustivo para os artistas, e Franco abordou-o repetidamente na sua crítica.⁵⁷As passagens de sofrimento, violência, comoção e boas-vindas, compostas por quatorze estações, fornecem uma narrativa de purificação emocional para os fiéis, cujo objetivo é tanto aproximar-se do divino por meio da experiência mística quanto obter indulgência por falhas morais — nesse sentido, a solução formal do artista desconhecido do oratório, da mendicância, da escultura de pequenas figuras policromadas sobre fundo azul em uma narrativa de ascendência por meio do sacrifício do filho de Deus, reforça a ideia de ascensão e transcendência por meio da experiência da violência.

Em 1969, Franco empreendeu sua última análise pública de uma representação sagrada e popular do Calvário de Cristo, desta vez não em uma coluna de jornal, mas sim em um ensaio publicado em uma edição limitada de xilogravuras de Mestre Nosa⁵⁸ (ou Noza, variando a grafia). O artista cearense recém chegado a São Paulo, cujo nome de batismo era Inocêncio Miguel da Costa Nick (1897-1983), foi figura de destaque no movimento de valorização mercadológica da cultura popular, e seu conjunto de 15 imagens primeiramente encomendas pelo artista Sérvulo Esmeraldo, e depois editadas limitadamente em duas ocasiões – a 1ª na França pelo editor Robert Morel em 1965 por intermédio de Esmeraldo, a segunda em 1969 pelo editor Julio Pacello – alimentou esse frison do “primitivo”, “inocente” e “puro” da arte dita popular. 

É interessante que em sua análise crítica do oratório e das xilogravuras de Nosa, Franco enfatize a engenhosidade das soluções formais diante das chamadas representações simplistas de um tema religioso clássico e consagrado no contexto cristão. A Via Sacra e o sofrimento suportado por Jesus foram historicamente mobilizados como dispositivos moralizantes para as massas, entre as quais a abnegação material e a submissão física constituem uma condição imperativa para a ascensão do espírito — especialmente em meio à fragilidade econômica e à turbulência política, como foi o caso durante o tempo de Franco como profissional das artes nos setores crítico e curatorial. Seja sob o ditatorial Estado Novo (1937–45) durante o governo de Getúlio Vargas ou sob a ditadura militar posterior (1964–85), as produções artísticas de natureza religiosa tinham, duvidosamente, a função pública de familiaridade cultural e de criar metáforas críticas para causas sociais.

No entanto, no que se refere a esse conjunto de artigos de Maria Eugênia Franco, os temas religiosos na arte moderna brasileira são um bastião da constituição da identidade nacional, um aspecto de obsessão na geração tardo-moderna do Retorno à Ordem. Franco parece ter feito um círculo de eterno retorno, ainda que indireta e tangencialmente, ao reino místico cristão em meio às suas próprias lutas para construir o ambiente artístico e a formação estético-educacional do público⁶⁰(síntese da forma com o conteúdo, síntese da prática artística investigativa e dramatização dos afetos), ainda que hoje ela seja pouco lembrada por seus pares.

The post Catholic and Popular Mysticism in Brazilian Modern Art: The Quest for Maria Eugênia Franco’s Critique of Sacred Representations / Misticismo católico e popular na arte moderna brasileira: a busca da crítica de Maria Eugênia Franco às representações sacras appeared first on post.

“Seyni Awa Camara doesn’t belong to any artistic school,” wrote art critic Massamba Mbaye in 2016.¹ She resists any classification and has always considered herself a singular artist, whether in the context of her own country or in that of the international art scene (fig. 1). As Mbaye stresses, Seyni Awa Camara (Senegalese, born c. 1945) could easily have been excluded from the history of art built in the aftermath of independence in Senegal under Léopold Sédar Senghor’s patronage and with state support, when artists were trained at the Dakar “école des arts,” mostly as painters. Except for Younousse Seye (Senegalese, born 1940), no women participated in the exhibitions organized to promote national Senegalese art. Younousse Seye was the only woman to display in Dakar (solo exhibition, Théâtre Daniel Sorano, 1977), Algiers (Pan-African Festival, 1969), and Paris (Art sénégalais d’aujourd’hui, 1974). And contrary to most men, she did not benefit from academic training; she learned from her mother who worked as a batik dyer. Camara also inherited her skills from her mother, who was a potter in Casamance (Senegal). Both artists grounded their practices in family knowledge and later developed in more personal directions. Camara certainly gained more attention than Seye over time, especially outside of Senegal. At the turn of the 1990s, her bold statues were displayed in Paris (Magiciens de la terre, 1989), Las Palmas (Africa Hoy, Africa Now, 1992), and Venice (Biennale Arte 2001—Plateau dell’Umanità, 2001). They are now part of important collections such as the National Museum of Art (Oslo), the Theodore Monod Museum in Dakar (see fig. 4), and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris), as well as held in many private collections, some of which are in Senegal (Jom in Dakar and the Musée Khelcom in Saly Portudal). If her creations have stood the test of time, they have also crystallized many of the binary opposites that still structure the art world’s expectations, such as art and craft or the collective and the singular, or the caution deemed necessary by the West in validating any artistic process developed in the so-called peripheries. Looking at the history of global contemporary art from the perspective of Camara’s work and career reveals the ways in which globalization operates, especially regarding women artists from Africa.

Seyni Awa Camara’s figures are striking, and yet they are not meant to please or seduce. They stand free, strongly anchored by their feet, and are sometimes double-headed. With their large smiles, their visible teeth, and their bulging eyes, they often look provocatively happy. Their size varies from a few inches to several yards high, but they are always frontal and hieratic; they are sometimes covered with smaller figures, who cling to their torsos and legs (fig. 2).

When Camara started making these sculptures in her village in Bignona (Casamance, Senegal), people were scared; she could not show them publicly. Michèle Odeyé-Finzi recalls that when she met the artist in the early 1980s, Camara was selling utilitarian pots in the local market.² She was keeping her personal sculptures at her home outside the village in a special room that she had dedicated to them. There, statuettes ranging from maternity figures to zoomorphic ones, small frogs juxtaposed with large cats, trucks, or monkeys (fig. 3), covered the floor. They were made of clay of various shades depending on how they were fired, which is less the case today.

Mystery and rumor surrounded her activities and continue to do so: some wonder if she is still alive and if it is she or rather a sibling who is making the sculptures sold today. A triplet, she was about twelve years old when she disappeared into the forest with her two brothers. As the story goes, they stayed hidden for about four months and geniuses protected them and taught them how to model clay. When the three children finally returned to the village, one of them (Allassane) was carrying a sculpture that he said the forest geniuses had taught him to make. Camara told anthropologist Michèle Odeyé-Finzi that all three of them had been initiated into art by mystical forces—a story that perfectly fit the expectations of the West. It only needed to be relayed by the art world to become magical, which happened in Paris in 1989 at the Magiciens de la Terre (Magicians of the World) exhibition.

A lot has been said and written about Magiciens de la Terre as it betrayed many of the hopes it had raised of being the first truly inclusive and international exhibition. According to the Centre Pompidou, which mounted the show, one hundred artists from all over the world were represented in the French capital: fifty from the West and fifty from “the rest” or “non-Western countries.”³ This Eurocentric division was reinforced by the selection criteria: the works of artists from Asia, South America, and Africa were the result of religious, rural, or mystical practices, while those from Europe and the United States were technological, conceptual, and often self-reflexive in nature. Global modernisms were excluded as curator Jean-Hubert Martin feared they would be considered mere copies of Western styles.⁴ The “Picasso syndrome” theorized by Partha Mitter for Indian artists easily applies to any artist from the Global South, and instead of presenting artists who questioned modernism from different perspectives (such as those affiliated with the Dakar School or Laboratoire Agit’Art in Senegal), Martin and co-curator André Magnin chose artists whose work implicitly reenacts the opposition between the “primitive” and the “modern.” This dual approach revived the primitivistic fashion that took place in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the European avant-gardes drew inspiration from the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, hence contributing to their paradoxical integration into the Western canon.⁵ The “problem” with this exhibition was not the art or the artists, but rather the burden of representativity it imposed on the artists as their art was led to incarnate one part of the world in comparison or contrast with another.

Still unknown within the contemporary art scene, Camara’s statues were exhibited next to those of Louise Bourgeois (American, born France. 1911–2010), one of the few “great women artists” at the time, to quote art historian Linda Nochlin.⁶ Bourgeois served as symbolic validation for Camara, a gesture that was reiterated in 1996 when Bourgeois was invited to write about Camara for a book titled Contemporary Art of Africa: “I recognize her originality and a certain beauty. Now, beauty is a dangerous word because notions of ‘beauty’ are relative. So let me be very clear: the work gives me pleasure to look at. As one artist to the other, I respect, like and enjoy Camara.”⁷ Camara always considered herself an artist even though she lacked academic training (in the 1980s in Senegal, only 30 percent of girls went to school, and 93 percent of those attending art school were men⁸). “She enjoyed or missed the privilege of going to art school (a blessing in disguise),” continued Bourgeois. “But there need be no apologies for naïveté or technical shortcomings. Her genuinely expressive figures have a coherence in style.”⁹

Camara started making sculptures when she was six years old. She learned from her mother and used to hide zoomorphic figurines in the burning oven among the pots and amphoras her mother was making to be sold at the local market. At the age of fifteen, she was forced to marry a much older man and stopped creating. Though she was pregnant four times, she never gave birth; moreover, she fell seriously ill and had to undergo several operations. Like too many women in Senegal and around the world who are forced to marry at too early an age, Camara had to fight. She came back to art when she left her husband and found in sculpture a way to survive and rebuild herself. Her creations are testament to the power of a woman who not only persisted in a practice many considered strange or marginal, but also was able to make sense of it. She fashioned a unique style and, in the process, built herself a home and secured stable sustenance for her family.

Drawing inspiration from her surroundings, Camara has been prolific and consistent, often dedicating her efforts to pregnant figures and expressions of the maternal. In 1989, for instance, she showed a series of feminine statues covered with small smiling figures that seemed to be budding from them. The energy and power of this work results from accumulation, from the repetition of motifs that creates a tension and challenges any easy apprehension of their meaning. Faces suddenly appear on a belly or the knees, radiating like a sun. Camara’s anonymous characters wear jewelry, they have scarifications and elaborate hairstyles. They command our attention with their round eyes, but yet repel us with their silent, empty stares.

Camara believes these figures can heal both herself and others. Indeed, she once cured a couple who could not have children, helping them give birth to twins, as she recalls in Fatou Kandé Senghor’s film Giving Birth.¹⁰Healing takes time, as does the making of sculptures, which in Camara’s case, begins with the fetching of clay from the marigot (swamp) and is followed by the fine grinding of shellfish and the mixing of the two ingredients.

Once the modeling has been completed, the firing stage, which takes place in the open air of the concession yard, begins (fig. 5). As is always the case with ceramics, some pieces break or explode, while others endure the flames and come out just fine. Camara can count on the help of her family and is often shown surrounded by the young men (her second husband’s sons) who work for her, obeying her orders, preparing the pellets she progressively adds to her hollow figures (fig. 8). Though Camara trains those who assist her, she does not intend to pass down her style or her secrets, as she states in Kandé Senghor’s film. Her art is personal, unique; she believes she received a gift from God and that when she dies, her production should stop. 

Camara has been living from her art since the 1990s, but to her great regret, she sells mostly to foreigners. As she recounted in 2006: “People don’t know me in my own country. I survive thanks to foreigners’ orders. They buy my work and then they leave. My own country ignores me. They don’t know who I am.”¹¹ Fortunately, things have changed since then. The Théodore Monod African Art Museum organized a show of her work in 2018 and acquired some of her statues. The Dak’Art biennial included several of her ceramics in the national pavilion the same year, including her in a national survey of art, and her fame continues to grow within the Western art market. 

I wish to thank Francesco Biamonte, Bassam Chaïtou, Michèle Odeyé-Finzi, El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, and Fatou Kandé Senghor for the information and images they so generously shared with me for this essay. 

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