At the Brent Fabric of a Nation opening October

Costume for Two

I made an interactive costume created in response to Fabric of a Nation, touring British Museum exhibition showing at Brent Museum. It is designed so that two children can wear it at the same time!
My inspiration for this piece is from the bold and elaborate Egungun Oyo masquerade costumes, which are worn at festivals held by Yoruba-speaking people in Nigeria to remember and pay respect to ancestors. The piece is also inspired by Ghanaian kente and adinkra cloths, traditional West African textiles and contemporary African artwork.
As with the traditional Egungun masquerade costumes, this handmade piece has been made out of a wide range of materials, from Dutch wax prints to bottle tops, and from batik fabrics to shells. The colourful strips of cloth move easily as wearers dance and perform, and contain both traditional and contemporary stories which you are invited to read.

Combination

CASSAVA is a combination of previously shown installations, some recent paintings and two works specifically fabricated for the show. Inspired by my daughter Esther’s recent visit to South Africa to see her father and the year of the world cup the making of the South African flag and some thought provoking text seems to contextualise the show within the space.

HLM Costume shown in ‘Three’ at Picture This 2007 and in ‘Voices’ at the Bristol Museum Gallery in 2008 and Cassava – Clothing Art Saying Something and Valuing Alternatives shown in ‘Craftivism’ at the Arnolfini earlier this year, seem to complement each other as textiles pieces with a backdrop of the Nigerian flag.

South African Flag

The Republic’s flag is ethnic in design and concept and heralds an era of optimism, progress and peace for all its varied race groups

C: Considering Cooperatively, Communally, Collectively, Collaboratively
A: Alternatively Assimilate, Absorb, Adapt, adjust
S: SUPPOSING Systematically, Symptomatically, Suggest, suppose
S: SOUTH Africa, South Africa, Africa, South Africa
A: AFRICA South Africa, Africa, South Africa, Africa
V: VALUED Values, Varied, Vulnerable
A: ALL, altogether

C: Cooperatively Communally, Collectively, Collaboratively
A: Assimilate Absorb, Adapt, adjust
S: Systematically Symptomatically, Suggest, suppose
S: SOUTH Africa, South Africa, Africa, South Africa
A: AFRICA South Africa, Africa, South Africa, Africa
V: Varied Values, Varied, Vulnerable
A: Abundance, altogether, alternatives, abundance

May - June

CASSAVA thrives better in poor soils than any other major food plant. As a result fertilizer is rarely necessary. CASSAVA is a heat-loving plant that requires minimum temperature of 80 degrees F to grow. Around the world CASSAVA is a vital staple for about 5000 million people the third largest sauce of carbohydrates for human consumption in the world.

Clothing art saying something and valuing alternatives

Yoruba indigo-dyed cloth: Adire eleko is popular hand-dyed cloth among the Yoruba peoples, who live in Nigeria and the adjoining Republic of Benin in West Africa. Indigo-plant dye creates the characteristic blue color, which is most often applied to white factory-made cloth. Patterns are created by painting or stenciling starch, usually made from cassava flour, onto the cloth before dyeing. Starched areas resist the dye, taking on a lighter hue than the unstarched parts, which readily absorb the indigo.

Gari is a creamy-white, granular flour with a slightly fermented flavor and a slightly sour taste made from fermented, gelatinized fresh cassava tubers. Gari is widely known in Nigeria and other West African countries.

CASSAVA

New show coming up combining previous shows with additional flag works. Took me all week to complete a 2x3mt South African flag and a smaller Nigerian flag on 2 separate 2x6mt stretches of calico to show in Rich Mix mezzanine.

CASSAVA Exhibition text

6th May - 6th June

UK born artist Gloria Ojulari Sule brings her multi-media installation to Rich Mix encompassing video, costume, painting and drawing. As a British woman of dual heritage she addresses a number of themes and aims to dispel sterotypes with her work. A srong sense of cultural identity is achieved through her individual work as well as through a number of project collaborations.

Craftivism- CASSAVA

http://craftivism.net/wiki/About_craftivism

Main Costume. 3 in 1 Egúngún, which can be translated as 'powers concealed' is an annual or biennial masquerade festival held by Yoruba-speaking people in Nigeria. It takes the form of masked and costumed performers moving among the crowd, through the streets.

An Egúngún masker represents, honours and invokes an ancestor. Concealed by his layered cloth costume, the performer energetically spins the ancestor into being through freeform dance.

The main costume combines Dutch wax prints, traditional West African produced batiks and tie dye with mass-market clothing fragments. The piece makes references to global issues of environmental damage, exploitation of labour in the clothing industries and migrant populations.