Bogolan: Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali
Victoria L. Rovine
Focusing on a single Malian textile identified variously as bogolanfini, bogolan, or mudcloth, Victoria L. Rovine traces the dramatic technical and stylistic innovations that have transformed the cloth from its village origins into a symbol of new internationalism. Rovine shows how the biography of this uniquely African textile reveals much about contemporary culture in urban Africa and about the global markets in which African art circulates. Bogolan has become a symbol of national and ethnic identities, an element of contemporary, urban fashion, and a lucrative product in tourist art markets. At the heart of this beautifully illustrated book are the artists, changing notions of tradition, nationalism, and the value of cloth making and marketing on a worldwide scale.
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About Victoria L. Rovine
Reviews for Bogolan: Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali
African Studies Review
Rovine has given us a thorough and authoritative account of the adaptability of a given textile to a wide range of local and international modalities.
Textile
. . . [T]his is a very good read for anyone with a passion for textiles and the many stories it can tell.No. 93, 2009
Textile Fibre Forum
I would recommend Rovine's book to anyone interested in West African culture, negotiations between tradition and modernity, or material culture in general. Her book provides a wealth of information on Bamana artists, markets, clothing, and bogolan.
Folklore Forum