Emblematic of Africa, priz by fashion and show business: wax is an essential fabric. The Musée de l’Homme traces its multicultural history, between dispossession and reappropriation, through an exhibition. Report.
“Mom, do you think grandma could make me a wax t-shirt?” asks a child, mesmeriz by the fabric on display. Wax, super wax and even emboss, the fabric comes in a variety of styles. Same principle for its patterns and colors. They can be mix endlessly, giving rise to unique and timeless creations, with patterns that carry meaning.
From February 5 to September 7, the Balcony of Science, an emblematic place of the Musée de l’Homme, offers a new temporary exhibition: WAX. This is part of the research trail on migration open last November.
A multicultural fabric
On this first opening weekend, the exhibition is pack. Parents and children, but also groups of girlfriends jostle to admire this emblematic fabric made of cotton. For Lucas, 12, who came with his family, the exhibition allows him to understand the history of traditional clothes worn during family celebrations.
“At wdings, everyone wears wax. I didn’t know that prints had meanings ,” he marvels. His parents, a Franco-Ivorian couple, reminisce as they stroll down the aisles. “I had this one ,” his father says, pointing to a loincloth with a floral print made of yellow and burgundy on a strip background.
It is not a textile native to the African continent, and we want south korea phone number library to point out that before its rise, its inhabitants had their own traditional clothing.
Originally from Africa in the collective imagination
wax is rather a multicultural fabric. At the crossroads between three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa. Between spoliation and reappropriation, wax is at the beginning, a technical transposition of batik, an effectively driving the desir action Indonesian fabric dy using a wax process. Present in Indonesia, Europeans appropriat batik and imitat its making.
After industrializing it, they export it to their colonies. germany cell number In West Africa, the fabric was to meet with considerable success from 1890. “It is not a textile native to the African continent, and we want to point out that before its rise, its inhabitants had their own traditional clothing ,” explains Marie Melin, curator and museographer of the exhibition. A device also traces the ancestral fabrics of Togo and Guinea.
