Displaying items by tag: material culture

Turkana Design: A Roomance with Conic Sections

The Turkana people are camelcattle and goat people living in North Westen Kanya. They are belived to be connected to the Karamojong Cluster of ethnic communities.  Most of the Turkana's material culture is based on and or decorated with hyberboloiids in one and two sheets and with hyperbolic parabolioids, all in 2 or three dimensions. . Having studied this material culture for several decades, the author describes it and her efforts to find meanings and Turkana understandig of why they make everything from conic sections including non functional surface decoration.  A small sample of baffled Turkanas have pointed our that they never noticed the phenomenon until it was pointed out to them.  A great deal of research remains to be cone on the subject. 

``

East African Art in the Fusion Period

By

Donna Pido, Associate Professor, Department of Design and Creative Media, The Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi

During the 19^th Century, as the colonial incursion gained momentum, three great artistic traditions began to interact.. The interactions took many forms and were driven by several forces not the least of which were force, esthetic persuasion and material change.  The result was a complex set of developments that have been largely ignored and grossly under-studied because historians and other scholars have focused on linear political and eventual realities.  The European mindset of self-superiority above all others and the definition of African cultures as ‘backward’ and in need of replacement has been a major contributor to the scholarly neglect of East African esthetic traditions.  In this article the author examines the three grand artistic/esthetic traditions that came together in East Africa.  The indigenous African, the Indian Ocean Rim and the European. After describing the three, the author discusses specific examples of continuity, elaboration and innovation, of historical significance, of communicative value, of enablement and of dissemination of the esthetic and social ideals of several selected communities from the late 1800s to the present.  We can see the many ways in which force, opportunism, defiance and innovation have enriched everyone’s artistic output.