African Occasional Textiles Vernacular Landscapes of Development

Catherine P. Bishop

ccasional textiles, or tissus événementiels, I highlight iconography constituting landscapes, people, and are iconic elements of large-scale social technologies symbolizing achievements and aspirations associ- events in many parts of Africa (Rabine ated with modernity, progress, and development. 2002). Since the mid-twentieth century, The diversity of symbols represent more than political propa- widespread production and circulation of ganda, although much scholarship has emphasized this rather printed cotton cloth designed and worn notorious dimension of the communicative value of the materi- for special occasions such as political rallies, the arrival of vis- als (e.g., Akinwunmi 1997; Ayina 1987; Beauchamp 1957; Bick- Oiting dignitaries, the celebration of holidays and anniversa- ford 1994; Clarke 2002; Clark 2005; Faber 2010; Nielson 1979; ries, and the commemoration of individuals and institutions Picton 2001; Spencer 1982). Understood as historical text, the have made occasional textiles a transnational social phenom- iconography displayed on African occasional textiles reveals enon and ubiquitous form of material culture. Similar types of attitudes surrounding development, modernity, the environ- political textiles have historically been used in Europe and the ment, and aspirations for the future. Like written texts, the United States as tea towels, kerchiefs, upholstery fabric, ban- symbolic content of occasional textiles presupposes situated ners, and wall hangings (for examples see Atkins 2005; Collins cultural knowledge critical to interpreting the ideas communi- 1979; Fischer 1988; Reath 1925; Thieme 1984). However, African cated. Textile iconography serves not only to commemorate the consumers in many different regions have generally preferred past but contributes to shaping the future; as noted by curator the fabrics as wrappers or tailored clothing, often to be worn Anne Spencer, occasional textiles have “been used effectively to as matching outfits by large numbers of people during par- popularize new ideas … to promote party policies ranging from ticular events. A material discourse and popular form of con- education to rural development” (1982:6–7). However, the role sumer culture throughout many parts of the continent, African of this iconography in processes of development, while recog- occasional textiles emerge from and contribute to processes of nized, has received comparatively little intellectual scrutiny (e.g., nationalization, globalization, capitalism, and development. Ayina 1987; Spencer 1982; Textile Museum of Canada 2009). Alternatively known as commemorative cloths or “portrait- John Picton explains that the factory origin of cotton prints cloths,” this foundational element of contemporary African accounts for “relatively late entry into the subject matter of Afri- sartorial art, I argue, provides an ongoing visual commentary canist art-historical research” (1995:24–25). Previous studies of regarding the direction of society but also shapes emergent dis- the iconographic repertoire of occasional textiles tend to high- courses and practices as a form of political technology intended light a seemingly infinite array of themes, events, and people to circulate and reinforce ideas of progress. The iconography of that appears to defy generalization (e.g., Faber 2010:9; Picton occasional textiles thus provides a rich source of information 2001:112; Rabine 2002:151–52). More troubling is the notion that on individual and community perceptions, memories, myths, these African textiles are too “wacky” for European taste (Picton and aspirations. Instead of reading the textiles as forms of party 2001:159). In this article I assert that while the artwork and sym- propaganda, and moving beyond a national frame of reference, bols displayed on occasional textiles may be facilely categorized

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 72 8/23/14 7:25 AM 1 Factory printed cloth Undetermined peoples Cotton, dye; 120 cm x 96.7 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-7 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 73 8/23/14 7:25 AM textiles operate as a political technology at the scale of the human body, covering and modifying the most intimate of surface areas. As sartorial art, occasional textiles structure relationships between the individual self and the social world; these cloths can be used to express multiple, overlapping, and conflicting mean- ings (Allman 2004; Bickford 1994, 1997; Cordwell 1979; Gott and Loughran 2010; Hendrickson 1996; Textile Museum of Canada 2009). This study analyzes a sample of twenty-two textiles from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Zambia produced during the second half of the twentieth century. The sample was selected from the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African Art, and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, as well as several privately owned artifacts. While building this sample, I deliberately chose textiles that evoked the theme of development, understood broadly to encompass programs, policies, and ideas surrounding social and economic progress in Africa. Discourses, practices, and symbols of politics and development overlap in substantial ways, yet taking development as a starting point shifts focus from presidential portraiture and party politics to localized experiences of modernity, globalization, and social change in Africa. While many studies of occasional textiles have highlighted their role in commemoration and celebration of national heroes (e.g., Faber 2010; Spencer 1982), I demonstrate that commemoration is but one function these objects are meant to perform. These textiles contribute to processes of development by visually communicating and reify- ing the aspirations of marginalized populations such as farmers, as wacky, inauthentic, or simplistic propaganda, in effect this art urban workers, women, children, and more broadly, the recipi- form remains largely illegible to “outside” viewers. ents of international and national forms of development aid. To How can we translate and understand the language of African generalize across a diversity of discourses, images, and symbols, occasional textiles given their broad diversity in visual content? I employ an analytical approach that incorporates all of these These materials must be understood as more than just vehicles elements within a cohesive framework—that of the vernacular for iconography intended for public display. Rather, occasional landscape.

2 Factory printed cloth Undetermined peoples Cotton, dye; 120 cm x 93 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-1 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

3 Factory printed cloth (detail) Democratic Republic of the Congo Cotton, dye; 117.5 cm x 425.5 cm Gift of Sigourney Thayer 77-7-1 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 74 8/23/14 7:25 AM 4 Factory printed cloth Undetermined peoples Cotton, dye; 119.5 cm x 96.8 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-15 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

Vernacular landscapes of deVelopment According to Dennis Cosgrove (1998), landscapes embody complexities, ambi- guities, and expressions of power emerging from geographical, social, and cultural circumstances. One way to analyze the multivalency of landscape is to deploy a particular “way of seeing” that blends an insider appreciation of place with an outsider’s critical perspective on social and political issues. Cosgrove states that “landscape constitutes a discourse through which identifiable social groups historically have framed themselves and their relations with both the land and with other human groups,” and the outcome is that myth, memory, and meaning invade the material existence of landscapes (1998:ix). Social and political revolutions in Africa involved dramatic reorganiza- tion of human-environment relationships, triggering profound changes in how people reflected on what they did and what they were. The world that African communities conceived and the place that they imagined themselves to occupy within it changed as their material conditions and political alignments Not only is there an analogy in development studies, but there were transformed. The concepts of modernity and develop- is arguably a correspondence to the study of African occasional ment were profoundly influential in terms of the way citizens of textiles as well. The broad diversity of types of iconography char- emerging postcolonial societies envisioned the future. acterizing the textiles does not fit neatly into the conceptual In their research on economic development in Indonesia paradigm of presidential politics and nationalism framing most under the Suharto regime, Dove and Kammen (2001) draw on scholarly studies of these objects (e.g., Bickford 1994; Clark 2005; J.B. Jackson’s (1984) concept of the “vernacular landscape” to cre- Faber 2010; Picton 2001; Spencer 1982). Considering the textile ate a framework for analyzing “vernacular models of develop- designs as constitutive of vernacular landscapes leads to new ways ment.” While these authors investigate the differences between of interpreting the seeming cacophony of a body of unique and real and imagined landscapes of development, in this study I localized images, voices, ideas, and values. Ephemeral in content focus on ideas about development concretized through the ico- and in physical circulation, the continuously evolving iconogra- nography of vernacular landscapes. Dove and Kammen elaborate phy of occasional textiles evokes “mobility of people and spaces, a on Jackson’s statement that he began to perceive only indirectly search for adjustment, for change … an incessant adaptation and at first the processual, shifting nature of landscapes: remaking of the landscape” (Jackson 1984:xii). What we see out of the corners of our eyes tend to be things that do Landscapes, dressed bodies, and politics are inextricable. The not fit existing conceptual paradigms. Jackson’s accomplishment in dressed body surface emerges from and is formative of cultural, the field of landscape studies, thus, was to bring what he saw into full political, and physical dimensions of landscape. Clothing and view, to re-conceive it as not a peripheral matter but a type of land- textiles, like landscapes, embody power relationships. Transfor- scape—a vernacular landscape—in its own right. There is an analogy mations in power relationships are constitutive of transforma- in development studies (Dove and Kammen 2001:620). tions in treatments of the body surface and other aspects of the

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 75 8/23/14 7:25 AM 5 Factory printed cloth (detail) Liberia; 1966 Cotton, dye; 179.2 cm x 120.3 cm Warren and Kathleen d’Azevedo Collection 2004-01-0035 Photo: Matthew Sieber, Mathers Museum of World Cultures

6 Factory printed cloth (detail) Congo;1960 Cotton, dye; 119.1 cm x 173 cm The Wil and Irene Petty Collection 2008-5-69 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

cultural landscape. This is most dramatically illustrated during modernization, incorporate them into local landscapes, and moments of rapid political and economic restructuring (Mitchell translate them into symbols of community prosperity and hope 2000). Periods of stability in traditional forms of production and for the future. consumption of material culture may undergo “violent reordering during which the tradition is recentered” (Glassie 1989:218). symbols of progress The most recent phase of the reordering of the artistic tradition During the colonial period European designers and manufac- of occasional textile production in Africa began during the era turers produced textile prints intended to entice African consum- of independence in the mid twentieth century. ers (Nielsen 1979; Steiner 1985). Although the designers consulted During the 1960s African designers began to work in newly with local African agents to anticipate fashion trends in wax print constructed, nationalized textile mills to produce occasional consumption, occasional textiles from the colonial era display prints depicting and reflecting histories and landscapes, political landscape iconography reflecting European ideas about and atti- and social movements, technological change, local memories, tudes toward Africa and Africans. One example is an early print and aesthetic preferences. Textiles as a medium of communica- depicting a small house, palm tree, and shoreline in the fore- tion became an important vehicle of not only political propa- ground close to an African sailboat filled with passengers look- ganda, but of the marketing of development programs (Ayina ing out at a steamship in the distance (Fig. 1). In this image, the 1987; Spencer 1982; Textile Museum of Canada 2009). African steamship symbolizes the technology of modernity and the idea designers utilized images of environments, technologies, and of intercontinental travel; this ideal remains out of reach for the people in occasional textile designs to communicate vernacular models of development that built on local knowledge and memories as well as aspirations and visions of postcolonial modernity. The representations of cultural landscapes in occasional textile iconography change over time, incorporating new themes, patterns, and aesthetic elements that reflect societal, technological, and environmental transformations. The change is evi- dent when comparing occasional textiles designed during the postcolonial period to those circulating prior to 1960. While colonial representations of the landscape in textile designs emphasized distance between African people and modern technologies, African representations of vernacular landscapes of development appropriate the icons of technology and

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 76 8/23/14 7:26 AM 7 Factory printed cloth (detail) Zambia; 1963 Cotton, dye E427929 Photo: Catherine Bishop, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

8 Factory printed cloth (detail) Kenya; 1963 Cotton, dye; 115.6 cm x 339.7 cm 79-25-3 Gift of Glenn and Alexandria Garrison, from the collection of Joseph J. Shapiro Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

African subjects who remain close to shore in their sailing vessel. including coffee, cocoa, coconuts, oil palm, and rubber. Distinct Likewise a print from the same era portrays an airplane soaring from the traditional European categorizations of trees as either in the sky high above a family of hippopotamuses, again reiterat- deciduous or coniferous, tropical trees symbolized the produc- ing the distance between the grounded reality of African existence tive potential of imperialism. Trees are multivalent, however, and and the tools of modernity arriving from and departing to other from the perspective of many Africans, the palm tree symbolizes places in the world (Fig. 2). Sabena airline, operating in the Bel- a gift from ancestors or from nature (Gay 1999). Palms are often gian Congo, circulated a textile advertising flight routes linking deployed as a political symbol of the capacity to provide to the cities across a map of the colony in which icons of animals such needs of society, demonstrated in a textile from Liberia celebrating as giraffes, elephants, and crocodiles dot the landscape (Fig. 3). As the birthday of President William Tubman in 1966 in which two in other parts of the world, air travel represented an elite activity trees flank an image of the Executive Mansion (Fig. 5). allowing white Europeans and other foreigners to circulate with During the decade of independence in Africa, political rallies ease across vast distances. Another early print displaying mecha- across the continent shared an important aesthetic element in the nized modes of transport in Africa is divided into four horizontal form of brilliantly colored commemorative textiles communicat- rows of repeating images of trains, buses, airplanes, and steam- ing euphoria and idealism. In addition to the presidential “por- ships moving through tropical, tree-filled landscapes devoid of people (Fig. 4). These designs incorporate icons of technology as aesthetic elements set in contrast to, and enhancing, landscapes perceived as wild and undeveloped. Like landscape artists, the designers of occasional textiles have frequently exploited the richly evocative iconography of trees and woodlands to represent ideas of social order (Daniels 1988). As in other historical, political, and environmental contexts, imagery of African woodlands provides a stabilizing symbol of society during a period of accelerating social change (Daniels 1988). Embodying what Europeans perceived as the exotic nature of the African tropics are icons of palm trees, omnipresent in occasional textiles. From the standpoint of colonial actors, tropical climates favored production of tree crops

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 77 8/23/14 7:26 AM 9 Factory printed cloth Cameroon; 1974 Cotton, dye Collection of Andrianne Konstas Photo: Catherine Bishop

10 Factory printed cloth Sierra Leone; 1966 Cotton, dye; 111.8 cm x 93.5 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-45 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

Why would African textile designers, with guidance from the political leaders who placed orders for occasional cloths, project an image of industry as something beautiful? Effectively serving as a pool of labor for immense mining operations and plantations, the indigenous societies of Africa had for many decades experi- enced harmful social and environmental transformations linked to the penetration of global capital in remote and resource-rich areas. In many African countries, industries were nationalized according to socialist ideologies of governance. The iconography of industry symbolizes repossession of land, resources, and infrastructure from colonial control. These sources of wealth would contribute to national prosperity. In addition to the factory landscape, the textile from Zambia also displays images of trains, boats, and airplanes moving through familiar landscapes filled with mountains and waterways. What had once been colonial possessions and tools were now in word, if not in deed, made trait-cloths” (Faber 2010) characteristic of presidential parades available for the good of the greater population. and events surrounding visiting dignitaries, occasional textiles Mechanized forms of mobility symbolize power; the rapid circulated in the early 1960s displaying images of landscapes and movement of bodies, weapons, and commodities had once maps. The aesthetic composition of these landscapes celebrates the ensured the dominance of colonial regimes. Travel, exploration, achievements of industrialization. Unlike the earlier prints of the and knowledge of vast geographic regions were made possible colonial period that depicted a gap between undeveloped Africa through innovations in transportation controlled by powerful and the symbols of mechanized modernity, the prints emerging during the era of independence embraced economic development and progress as forces uniting new nations and communities. A print designed for Congolese independence in 1960 (Fig. 6) combines a large map of the country with small icons accompanying the name of the various provinces. The southern province of Katanga features the image of a factory with multiple smokestacks. A print commemorating Zambian independence in 1963 (Fig. 7) displays a repeating factory landscape decorating the lower border filled with industrial equipment, smok- ing chimneys, conveyor belts, and even tiny mining carts. In the distance lie green mountains and billowing clouds. This con- ception of the landscape incorporates the materials of copper mining as aesthetic objects, translating economic development into a national aesthetic rather than a form of imperial domination.

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 78 8/23/14 7:26 AM ing at Mikumi train station welcomed the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta (Fig. 8). Later, in 1974, the inauguration of the “Transcamerounais” train running between Ngaoundéré and Yaoundé merited an occasional design featuring photographic images of the locomotive and a map of Cameroon in which the route of the train tracks are outlined (Fig. 9). Other modes of transport appear in the iconography of occasional textiles. One design from Sierra Leone reading “Happy 1966 / Growth of Culture in Africa” features a block pattern of small, repeating icons of cars, pens, telephones, radios, pipes, books, watches, and bottles of wine (Fig. 10). As important aesthetic elements in the design, these objects represent the desir- ability of modernization and technological change, processes that would decrease social inequalities and enhance personal, community, and national prestige. As in many parts of the world, car ownership is an important marker of social status. Cars and buses come to life in occasional prints, such as in the design used to remind citizens of Sierra Leone to switch from right-hand to left-hand traffic patterns on March 1, 1971 (Fig. 11). A landscape of highways and bridges traversing forests and hills is filled with rushing vehicles. In the distance is a blue ocean, reminiscent of the mountainous topography of Freetown and constituting a vernacular landscape of development recognizable to people in Sierra Leone. An accompanying textile produced to advertise the lane change depicts a woman in the foreground surrounded by agricultural produce holding a sign reading “Right Hand Traf- fic,” the landscape beyond dominated by a steamship at a port (Fig. 11). A lone lorry and several cars move through the dis- European elites. Perhaps more than any other form of transport, tant streets. This design suggests that obeying the new driving the train symbolized power throughout the colonial era and law will help people, including women, reach and integrate into the early decades of African independence (Adas 1989; Head- global economic circuits. rick 1988). Necessitating vast quantities of labor and materials, The iconography of African occasional textiles incorporates and representing the primary means of moving commodities out and celebrates urban landscapes and architecture. While trains and military personnel and arms in, the appropriation of trains and ships signify power and progress, modern architecture is a became a source of power and pride for newly independent monument symbolizing prosperity and modern feats of engi- African nations. A kanga from Kenya displaying a train arriv- neering. A textile made for the opening of the Hotel Ivoire in

11 Factory printed cloth Sierra Leone; ca. 1971 Cotton, dye; 116.4 cm x 96.1 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-48 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

12 Factory printed cloth Côte d’Ivoire; 1969 Cotton, dye; 113.2 cm x 170.2 cm The Wil and Irene Petty Collection 2008-5-48 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 79 8/23/14 7:26 AM 13 Factory printed cloth Cotton, dye; 114.3 cm x 116.7 cm The Wil and Irene Petty Collection 2008-5-43 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

14 Factory printed cloth (detail) Senegal; 1982 Cotton, dye; 117 cm x 87 cm E430421 Photo: Catherine Bishop, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

15 Factory printed cloth (detail) South Africa; 1994 Cotton, dye; 100 cm x 112 cm E430416 Photo: Catherine Bishop, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 80 8/23/14 7:26 AM 1969 displays the hotel’s two skyscrapers and a multistory park- Maps are value-laden images embedded in geographic dis- ing garage on a background mimicking the classic wax print courses, often deployed as instruments of power acquiring and design known as “the vine” (Fig. 12). In another textile, a large enforcing state law in the landscape, and colonial propaganda and unidentified stadium serves as a central motif on a plain maps anticipated empire, ultimately facilitating surveillance background of tomato red (Fig. 13). Serving as a source of and control of colonial territories (Harley 1988). However, maps national pride in participation in global activities, these forms appearing in African occasional textiles portray regional land- of architecture reflected a changing cultural landscape marked scapes transcending the traditional boundaries of nations and by rapid urbanization. As markers of growing city infrastructure, continents. Regional affiliations such as the Southern African images of urban landscapes symbolize concrete economic devel- Development Community (SADC) released a textile printed opment benefiting a large portion of the population. The iconog- with the map of the countries of southern Africa including Mau- raphy of the city evokes a distinction between urban and rural ritius (and excluding Madagascar) (Fig. 15). In 1992, the member and reifies the binary categorization coupling urban landscapes states signing the Treaty of the Southern African Development with modernization and, indirectly, rural landscapes with unde- Community included Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, veloped backwardness. Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Occasional textile designs redefined vernacular landscapes of Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The portraits and development by appropriating colonial power symbols such as names of the president of each country on the map surround the railroads, agricultural technology, and infrastructure. Moving beyond the local scale of infrastructure landscapes so crucial to nation building, textile designs also incorporate symbols of technology and cooperation operating at regional and transnational scales. A print designed for the inauguration of the Atlantis sub- marine cable in Dakar in 1982 displays a map of the Atlantic Ocean framed by the western coasts of Europe and Africa and the eastern coast of South America (Fig. 14). The cities linked by the cable are identified on the map as Recife, Dakar, Abidjan, Lagos, Asilah, Tetouan, Marseilles, Burgau, Sesimbra, Rodiles, Penmarch, and Land’s End. This map presents the South Atlan- tic as a region of contemporary, interconnected communications networks in which cities in Africa are central nodes. A font of Senegalese national pride, the span of the cable suggests new landscapes of global connection.

16 Factory printed cloth (detail) Senegal; 1994 Cotton, dye; 177 cm x 115 cm E431585 Photo: Brittany M. Hance, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

17 Factory printed cloth (detail), Apollo 11 Sierra Leone; 1969–70 Cotton, dye; 115.6 cm x 50 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-46 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 81 8/23/14 7:26 AM 18 Factory printed cloth Sierra Leone; date unknown Cotton, dye; 116.2 cm x 97.2 cm Gift of Donald A. Theuer and Lilburne Theuer Senn 2002-9-51 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

19 Factory printed cloth Zambia; 1991 Cotton, dye; 109 cm x 201.2 cm The Wil and Irene Petty Collection 2008-5-75 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

central motif, including Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe. In another example of transnational cooperation, in the late 1990s a textile circulated during a diplomatic visit to Senegal displays portraits of presidents Abdou Diouf and Bill Clinton and an image of clasping hands below the national maps of Senegal and the United States (Fig. 16). The hands denote political and economic ties linking the geographies of the two countries. While landscapes at various scales may appear in occasional designs, at least one textile depicts an extraterrestrial environment: a print from Sierra Leone released in 1969 to celebrate the landing of Apollo 11 (Fig. 17). Rockets blast back and forth across the borders while a central medallion in blue, green, red, and brown is surrounded by hundreds of craters. The print contains no obvious symbols of the origins of the space mission in the United States, suggesting that travel beyond Earth was consid- ered an achievement of the global community rather a narrowly defined national endeavor.

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 82 8/23/14 7:26 AM African occasional textiles display vernacular landscapes of role of women. The design emphasizes the family duties typically development reflecting and contributing to political and eco- associated with women in addition to highlighting opportuni- nomic processes and social movements at national, regional, ties to contribute to household income generation. The use of and global scales. The designs also depict people as constitutive a sewing machine symbolizes a modern approach to economic of development landscapes. While the human form serves as a activities while the acts of tending children and cooking anchor canvas on which to manipulate and circulate occasional textiles, women firmly in the sphere of the family compound. Both this the designs often incorporate representations of dressed bodies design from Sierra Leone and the following example from Zam- performing diverse acts. In many cases, the people portrayed are bia signify women’s economic and social liberation on the one women. One example is a design promoting the Sierra Leone hand, and on the other the enrollment of women into global eco- National Women’s Cooperative Society, proclaiming “Self Reli- nomic networks. Gendered landscapes of development charac- ance for Womanhood” (Fig. 18). The print displays a repeating terize African occasional textiles (see Gilman 2009). The print emblem of four women (or perhaps the same woman) working from Zambia reads “Vote UNIP for Economic Survival and at a sewing machine, breastfeeding, tending a cooking fire, and Progress” and features a central medallion in which a woman performing agricultural tasks. In some ways this message sub- is depicted operating an industrial loom (Fig. 19). She is sur- verts cultural norms surrounding the domestic, house-bound rounded by icons of the nation’s natural wealth: a waterfall (likely Victoria Falls of the Zambezi River), lions, and what appear to be rolls of copper wire. All of these elements are likely to be recognized as constituting the local landscape. The work of women is a national source of wealth and, problematically, women are

20 Factory printed cloth (detail) equated to nature in their capacity to produce (Rose 2008). Mali; date unknown Along the borders of the design from Zambia are images of Cotton, dye tractors. Farming was and remains the major economic activ- Private collection Photo: Catherine Bishop ity in rural Africa and development policies and actions have

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 83 8/23/14 7:26 AM 21 Factory printed cloth Zambia; date unknown Cotton, dye; 116.4 cm x 111 cm The Wil and Irene Petty Collection 2008-5-54 Photo: Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

22 Factory printed cloth (detail) Mali; 1986 Cotton, dye; 166 cm x 113 cm E431584 Photo: Catherine Bishop, National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution

often targeted agriculture as a “motor of development” as in the vernacular landscapes of development are symbolized through textile promoting the “Plan Quinquennal” of Mali (Fig. 20). The the logos of social movements linking people and livelihoods to mechanization of agriculture, and specifically the use of tractors, environments. generated new opportunities and challenges for African farmers. From the perspective of women, agricultural technology conclusion diffusion through development processes has tended to under- The broad diversity of iconography characterizing African mine traditional obligations and rights relative to production occasional textiles does not fit neatly into the conceptual para- (e.g., Carney and Watts 1991; Schroeder 1999). In most cases men digm of presidential politics, nationalism, and commemora- have had greater access to capital to invest in machinery, lead- tion framing most scholarly studies of these important cultural ing to transformations in social relationships and contributing to objects. Rather than attempting a typology of the variety of accelerating landscape modifications. Women’s contributions to discourses and practices of development have often centered on family issues such as health. A textile design from Zambia displays the image of a smiling mother holding an infant (Fig. 20). Encircling the image is text that reads “Get him immunized and let him live / A healthy child builds a healthy nation.” The imagery suggests that it is the responsibility of the mother to ensure the wellbeing of children. Another print promoting a vaccination program in Mali in 1986—the Programme Elargi de Vaccination—used a different approach to emphasize the importance of participation. The designer utilized a photographic representation of President Moussa Traoré administering an injection into a young girl as a central motif (Fig. 21). As the father of the nation, the president in this case takes on the responsibility for the wel- fare of the body politic. In these examples,

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140815-001_72-85 CS6.indd 84 8/23/14 7:26 AM themes depicted in these textiles, this study applied a landscape text. The content of the iconography is unreadable to those who “way of seeing” (Cosgrove 1998) as a holistic framework for cannot decode their symbols; however once the vernacular char- interpreting and analyzing the perceptions, attitudes, and aspira- acteristic of these landscapes is recognized, their appearance and tions expressed and reified through textile iconography. African messages become legible. occasional textiles must be read as more than simple representa- African occasional textiles provide important insights into the tional entities but rather as political devices in which the inter- ways that people envision, understand, and participate in pro- action of land, technology, and vision produces the elision of cesses of social and economic development. While the legacy experience and representation (Cosgrove 1998). of imperialism has influenced many contemporary studies and Conceptualizing the textile designs as representations of ver- critiques of development on the continent, occasional textiles nacular landscapes of development reveals trends, patterns, and help communicate a different meaning of development reflect- continuities in the iconography of occasional designs. While ing individual and community aspirations, local environmental romantic or picturesque representations of landscapes suggest perceptions, and postcolonial understandings of modernity. stability in form and a lack of human influence on nature, vernacular landscapes constitute processes of change understood Catherine P. Bishop is a doctoral candidate in the Departments of Geogra- phy and Anthropology at Indiana University. Her thesis “African Occasional through the actions and perceptions of people making a living Textiles” is based on research in the collections of the Mathers Museum of from the environment. Without the insider knowledge of local World Cultures, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National culture and environment informing the critical outsider perspec- Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, and focuses on the mate- tive, vernacular landscapes appear unremarkable. This is why the rial lifecycle of the fabrics. Her wider interests include international devel- landscapes depicted in occasional textiles have often remained opment, political ecology, science and technology studies, applied research, unseen or misunderstood outside of the immediate cultural con- material culture, textiles, and dress. [email protected]

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