Basketry is something everybody understands; It is a marriage of practicality and beauty.
Basketry; Making Human Nature is a new stunning exhibition showcasing both anthropology and visual art. Its techniques and materials are vividly illustrated by both beautiful world objects and contemporary art.
In Central Africa close communication with the dead and beliefs in the effectiveness of their powers, are mediated by healers, diviners and banganga (ritual specialists ).Banganga use containers, including baskets, filled with spiritually charged materials for divination purposes.
These baskets become so potent that they are themselves often contained in places of secrecy.Basketry costumes appear in masquerades in which a masked figure impersonates a spirit, ancestor or some other ideal entity. Masks have a life of their own, acting as a second skin which subsumes the identity of the performer.
This mask is from Salampasu, Democratic Republic of Congo 1951.
The exhibition is at the Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich until 22 May 2011.
Elise Godsell.
Not to be missed.
Manifesto: a means of expression
