The overall aim of the project was to pilot an intensive introduction to object research, photo-documentary and film making for participants to develop their portfolios and contribute to their Learning Power Awards.

Their work is also valuable for bringing the history of the objects you are about to see from being hidden away in stores to becoming more visible to a wider audience.

Metalwork

The first photographs were taken in the metal work stores and show objects produced in Southern Africa from the mid to late nineteenth century.

Some participants wanted to explore how such historically valuable objects came to be in the V&A, inciting questions about colonialism; the role of museums and whether some objects should continue to be held by them. Others were interested in their African history.

This solid bronze arm ring was accompanied by a letter from Major Fortescue who gave it to the V&A in 1898. In the letter he says the man who gave it to him had taken it from the grave of King Mzilikazi (ca. 1790-1868) near what is today known as Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Mzilikazi founded the Ndebele (Matabele) Kingdom in South Africa in what is known today as Zimbabwe. Like most revered military leaders there were many sides to Mzilikazi. He was known as a great statesman and described by many, including the famous British explorer David Livingstone, to be the greatest Southern African military leader after the Zulu King Shaka.

Mzilikazi could also be utterly ruthless as his domination of the Transvaal region came to be known locally as the Mfecane or crushing on account of the mass scale of killing his army carried out to create his new Ndebele order.

Necklace of variegated glass beads probably 'trade beads', produced in Europe - particularly Venice, Bohemia and the Netherlands - for trade in West Africa, and metal pendant, Asante state, Ghana, before 1874, (probably acquired via the British invasion of Kumasi on 4 February 1874) [museum number 3-1875]

The metal pendant appears to have been stuffed with vegetable fibre and red trade cloth and was probably worn by a member of the Asante court. This would partly explain how it found its way to Britain.

Bead work was and still is an art of sending messages through the skilled use of colour, pattern and symbol. Much is known and recorded about the skill of combining colours and designs to produce a message. It would be interesting to undertake further research into what the bead work of this example means.

Sources:
Stan Schoeman: "Eloquent beads, the semantics of a ZULU art form."
Regina Twala (1983) Africa Insight volume 13 no.2.
African Studies (1968) volume 27 No.2 and 3.

Due to its natural gold resources the southern coast of the Ashanti kingdom in West Africa was very wealthy and court regalia, which included textiles, ivory and gold, showed high levels of skill and technology in their production. Western visitors told of the dazzling displays of gold regalia at the court of the chief known as the Asantehene.

On the 4th February 1874 a British military expedition led by Major-General Sir Garnet Wolsely, invaded the state capital Kumasi. The Asantehene, Kofi Karikari, escaped in such haste that he left behind his court gold regalia to be captured by the British. The Ashanti surrendered but were then forced to pay a war indemnity of 50,000 ounces of gold.

These and other gold pieces you are about to see came into the V&A’s collection when some of the gold was sold at auction at Garrard’s London Crown Jewellers to help pay for the costs of pensions for relatives of the dead and wounded of the military expedition. The V&A’s accession registers record the purchase and receipt of these items of Ashanti gold and silverware from Garrard’s on 5th June 1874.

Swords like this one with a wooden handle decorated with beaten gold, featured in Ashanti court regalia since the 17th century. Their use appears to be ceremonial as there is no record of their being used in battle and they lack a sharp cutting edge.

We can see the hollow in the bottom that shows it was made using the lost wax method.

The pipe is just under a metre long and is made of a cast gold bowl. The stem is made of six hollow cylindrical pieces of alternating cast and repousse (hammered) gold bound with gold wire and repousse gold mouth piece.

This is a composition of various Ashanti (sic) court gold including the ceremonial tobacco pipe, ring and repousse ornamental work. There are tiny tear holes in the flat hammered work that may indicate it was ripped from the surface of what it was originally fixed to in the Ashanti court in haste.

Fashion and Textiles

The next images were taken from the Fashion and Textiles stores and Blythe House stores at Olympia. Most are Western made designs inspired by ideas that have come out of Africa.

This 1930’s evening dress and mantle in leopard print came from a period when motion pictures with colour and sound first hit the big screen. Exotic animal skins worn in the popular Tarzan films made such prints popular in the West.

These shoes by Emma Hope are great fun and really capture the zany humour of Josephine Baker who, though an American, played on the new western interest for Africa by adorning herself with African motifs like her famous rhinestone studded banana girdle that we can see here.

This Couture evening dress of the late 1940’s is tailored in the western style and is inspired by traditional West African print, drapes and folds. The fabric was produced in Manchester for export to West Africa.

This Djellaba (loose fitting over shirt or Kafkan) style robe was presented to Lee Radziwill by the King of Morocco when she accompanied her sister Jackie Kennedy on a visit to the country in 1963.

The robe is made in two parts: underneath is a bright pink floral satin trimmed with metallic braid with an over-tunic on top in a transparent floral fabric. Radziwill gave the robe and other items to the V&A at the request of Cecil Beaton for his 1971 V&A exhibition ‘Fashion an Anthology by Cecil Beaton’. Designer unknown

Above left: This FIKIN design promoted the FIKIN international fair in Kinshasa Democratic Republic of Congo. It depicts images of the controversial President Mobutu who ruled the country from 1965-1997.

Above: Made for the children’s market, probably for curtains this design imparts a racial propaganda message of white superiority.

This Rastafarian outfit was part of the V&A’s Street Style exhibition of 1994 and ten years later featured again in the BB Style of 2004.

It consists of a string vest, shirt and hat that show the red, gold and green colours of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1892-1975). The outfit shows how clothes can identify the faith culture and national identity of an individual.

Word and Image Department

The last image was inspired by material found in the Word and Image Department where participants looked at contemporary artistic representations of black culture and heritage with Peter Ashan.

This image by Ana Sofia Andrade was inspired by the work of artist Faisal Abduallah of Christ as a black man. Ana explored the image of Christ as a human transcending race and gender in creating her image of Christ as a black woman.

Photo Documentation by:

Ana Sofia Andrade
Babatunde Adu
Paul Cheidozie
Mohammed Diria
Darren Gillings
Eddie Emmins
Candace Param
William Maculhy
Eric Makasi
Rosette Mama Lutu

Research tutor: Peter Ashan
Photography tutor: Othello De’ Souza Hartley