My creative partner and I are curating an exhibition on contemporary African textiles and we keep clashing over whether to organize by geography, technique, or conceptual themes — she wants to highlight the diversity across regions but I think that approach risks fragmenting the deeper aesthetic continuities that connect Kente, Bogolan, and Shweshwe traditions. Every curatorial decision has become a debate about how to present African aesthetics without either homogenizing or tokenizing.
More people experience this than they realize.
The tension between celebrating diversity and revealing unity in African aesthetics is creating an impasse between collaborators with different curatorial philosophies.
“Where Are You with African aesthetics — across the continent?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.