This posting was submitted by Janet Goldner a New York-based artist who has worked in Mali over the last 26 years. Her main contacts and collaborators are member of the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane who have been instrumental in reviving and preserving traditional Malian textile techniques and cultural objects particularly the clay slip painting known as “bogolan.”
There’s lots going on this spring and summer at MAD with Dead or Alive opening officially on April 27th, Bespoke on May 13th and Abraaj 2010, scheduled for August 31st. In the midst of all this preparations for The Global Africa Project—to open on November 16, 2010—are progressing with great intensity.
Fashion designer Abdul Koroma was born and raised in Freetown Sierra Leone and educated in London. Koroma is co-owner of the London-based fashion house and design consultancy Modernist. The brand, which has shown its collection at London’s Fashion Week, is know for it’s clean lines and precise tailoring.
“Design Activist” would be the most appropriate way to describe American industrial designer Stephen Burks. This young multi-talented visionary, who has worked with some of the world’s most recognizable names in fashion and furniture industry, is changing the we way think about design – one idea at a time. By simultaneously using a top-down and a bottom-up approach he brings together the industrialized world’s gatekeepers of culture with traditional people in remote locales to create sustainable objects and symbiotic relationships.
On Monday February 1, 2010 I ventured into the Javits Center here in New York City in the midst of the International Gift Fair. I was on a mission. I was meeting with Oumar Cisse (AKA Peace Corps Baba) from Mopti, Mali.
Togolese designer, Kossi Aguessy is best known for award winning design for the Stella McCartney perfume bottle. Aguessy who trained in industrial and interior design at Central St. Martins, has worked with Renault, Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier, Swarovski, St Dupont and Branex to create sleek, sensual objects that range from lighting to watches. A consummate artist, Aguessy has exhibited art, sculpture and furniture in Paris, Copehagen, Tokyo, Shanghai and Istanbul.
Suzanne Morlock is an artist who lives outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She is works in painting and more recently sculpture and installation involving more organic materials, paper and felt. Morlock has exhibited in the US and internationally. This posting is drawn from her experiences in the summer of 2009 with Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc., Teshie/ Nungua, Ghana.
First, a little history – during the 1600’s, groups of escaped and shipwrecked African slaves made their way to St Vincent Island, an island of the Lesser Antilles, the islands that form eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. They mixed with the indigenous Caribs and Arawaks and the Garinagu (that’s plural for Garifuna) were born. They developed a unique language, culture and ritual. Drumming and dance had a central place in the culture.
Have you heard of the YA/YAs of New Orleans? No, I don’t mean the “Divine Sisterhood” of movie fame, but the organization (Young Aspirations/ Young Artists) whose mission is to “empower creative young people to become successful adults.” Founded over twenty years ago by Jana Napoli this organization works to give the youth of New Orleans “educational experiences in arts” and encourage “entrepreneurship…by fostering and supporting their ambitions.”
This is not your little cousin Muffie’s Barbie – not at all. With his limited-edition figurines for Mattel, Fashion Designer Byron Lars plays around with the legendary plastic style icon, keeping all the prerequisite Barbie musts intact – pointy ‘Barbie’ toes, beyond-perfect makeup, posture, and figure – whilst deftly playing around with her overall style dna.
