Kanga cloths have been central to the lives of east Africans for over a century, serving primarily as affordable wrappers for the majority of women. Existing scholarship on kanga design has focused on the communicative potential of texts on these affordable, printed cloths (Yahya-Othman 1997; Beck 2000, 2001, 2005; Parkin 2000, 2003; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). Discussions of design are largely anecdotal and do not chronicle change over time (Trillo 1984; Amory 1985; Spring 2005; Zawawi 2005; Bijl 2006; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). This essay utilizes over 5,000 examples of full-cloth kanga cloth, chronicling the design and production of Vlisco, the Dutch textile printer in Helmond, the Netherlands (Figs. 1a–b). Specific regional demands, changing text script, and innovations such as commemorative, advertising, and overtly political kanga can be dated. Women's unceasing demand for new designs is often...
Kanga Cloths at Vlisco: An Object-Based Study of Dutch Printing for the Colonial East African Market, 1876–1971
MacKenzie Moon Ryan specializes in the history of African and global art, with particular interest in textiles, fashion, trade, colonialism, cross-cultural exchange, and museum studies. Her research focuses on global networks of trade, African textiles and fashion, especially kanga cloth, and consumption of commodities to create conceptions of self in east Africa during the colonial period. She is Associate Professor of Art History at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and serves on the University of Florida consortium editorial board for African Arts. [email protected]
MacKenzie Moon Ryan specializes in the history of African and global art, with particular interest in textiles, fashion, trade, colonialism, cross-cultural exchange, and museum studies. Her research focuses on global networks of trade, African textiles and fashion, especially kanga cloth, and consumption of commodities to create conceptions of self in east Africa during the colonial period. She is Associate Professor of Art History at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and serves on the University of Florida consortium editorial board for African Arts. [email protected]
MacKenzie Moon Ryan; Kanga Cloths at Vlisco: An Object-Based Study of Dutch Printing for the Colonial East African Market, 1876–1971. African Arts 2023; 56 (3): 56–71. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00721
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