Patterned Modernity: The role of women in the production of textiles and contemporary art in Nigeria

This lecture will examine how the production of textiles contributed to modernization in Nigeria and provided a source of agency to the women who produced them. Through this history, I will look at how contemporary women artists are using these textiles as media and subject matter in their practices, in some cases defying the gendered limitations set for women artists.

Textiles are highly charged with gendered meanings in Nigerian culture, from the gender roles that determine their production, the gendering of patterns and colors, to the associations with dress, identity and the body. Informed by the historical significance textiles played in the development of the modern era in Nigeria, the artists whose work is examined in this lecture seem fully aware that tapping into this history facilitates an artistic agency that helps them negotiate their place in the contemporary art scene of Lagos, and Nigerian society in general. Particularly for women, who in the past were the primary players in the production of textiles, appropriating traditional patterns or techniques serve not only as forms of self-expression, but oftentimes as forms of political protest or activism. Thus, the pattern language of textiles can be used to address a range of contemporary social issues pertinent to women in the visual vernacular of traditional Nigerian cultures.

Erin M. Rice, MA is a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Art History and the Graduate School of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IASH) at the University of Bern. She received her Masters in Art History from Tufts University in Boston in 2010. Beginning in January 2014, she will be working at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Lagos, Nigeria as a visiting research resident.