ASC Seminar: Kanga: the ‘talking cloth of the Indian Ocean’

The seminar is co-organized by the ASCL collaborative research group 'Africa in the World' and the Contemporary History and International Relations Research Seminar series (CHIRRS) of Leiden University.  Material objects like the Kanga, a unique genre of cloth, have stories to tell. The fabric is a historical repository of the migration of Indian traders, who sailed across the western Indian Ocean to the Swahili coast, trading cloth, but also transporting visual aesthetics. Kanga designs feature Paisley/Khorosho motifs, the familiar square and dot patterns that adorn Indian Bandhani, but they also reveal artistic influences from Europe, the Middle East and the inland cultures of the Swahili coast. Over the centuries, this cosmopolitan cloth has mixed the boundaries between the peoples of the continents of Asia and Africa. Please register

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