| Textile
Resources
Home Page - here
Bogolan gallery - view
bogolan we have for sale here
Bogolan Links:
Groupe
Bogolan Kasobané
Au
Coeur du Mali - great site in French
Bogolan References:
Aherne,T.D. Nakunte
Diarra, Bogolanfini Artist of the Beledougou (1993)
Brett-Smith,S.
"Symbolic Blood: Cloths for Excised Women" in Res 3
(1982)
Imperato,P. &
Shamir,M. "Bokolanfini: Mud Cloth of the Bamana of Mali."
African Arts 3(4) (1970)
Polakoff,C. African
Textiles and Dyeing Techniques (1980)
Rovine,V. Bogolan:
Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali (2001)
(c)Duncan Clarke, Version
10/25/2003 |
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Within
the local tradition of bogolan cloth making in the countryside
north of the Malian capital of Bamako it does not appear that
artists were usually expected to produce innovatory designs.
Rather the mark of a successful design was the reproduction of
existing designs clearly, and perhaps in some novel but
appropriate combination. Many of the individual motifs applied
to sections of the cloth, or combinations of these motifs, have
names. Some of these names are based on the appearance of the
pattern, such as "fish bones", "little
stars", or "square". A common pattern of a cross
shape set diagonally within a square is called "Mauretanian
woman's head-cushion" after the expensive embroidered
leather cushions such women own and has implications of both
femininity and wealth. A few designs have names which refer to
aspects of women's daily experience, in particular to issues
such as co-wives rivalry within polygamous households.
In the years
since 1980 bogolan has gone from being an obscure if interesting
local textile tradition to become an internationally recognised
symbol of African style. This surprising new role for bogolan
has its roots with two developments in Bamako involving local
fine artists and fashion designers. At the art schools in Bamako
young artists began to experiment with and research the
technique as part of an ideological commitment to the use of
local materials in their work. These moves lead in the 1980s to
the formation of a collective of six artists calling themselves
Groupe Bogolan Kasobane, who went on to exhibit widely in Europe
and Francophone Africa a variety of both abstract and
representational paintings that utilised the bogolan technique.
The pioneer of the use of bogolan in fashion design was a Malian
designer Chris Seydou working in Paris. After attracting much
interest with a wrap of bogolan in his 1979 show he rapidly
increased the use of the fabric through the 1980s and early
'90s. When wealthy Bamako customers saw the new styles he was
creating using the fabric, and realised how much interest it was
attracting abroad, the response was enthusiastic. Seydou, before
his early death in 1994, promoted bogolan through annual fashion
shows on Malian television and worked with local textile
factories to develop industrially manufactured versions of the
mud cloth designs.
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Bogolan
inspired fashion by Woodin of Abidjan. |
In response to
this new interest young unemployed men and students in Bamako
began to produce simplified versions of classic rural Bogolan
designs, and experimented with new designs and colours. At the
same time the laborious and time consuming processes needed to
produce traditional bogolan were becoming rarer and rarer in the
countryside, making old style bogolan increasingly difficult to
obtain. Drawing on their roots in the rural Bamana tradition the
best examples of the new Bogolon styles display a creative flair
all their own. Their colour palette of rich browns, blacks, and
white, is particularly suited to interior decoration, looking
good as a drape, wall hanging, cushion cover, or furniture throw
in homes across the US and Europe.To View
Our Bogolan Cloths CLICK HERE
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