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Les femmes & l'art

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Bazin. Mudcloth. Malian women create beauty — and profit | Africa Renewal Online. After the bazin fabrics are dyed, they are hung out to dry. Photograph: Redux / Contrasto / Riccardo Venturi Hand-dyed polished cotton — called bazin — is the mainstay of Malian fashion. The blind singers Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia extolled the fabric in a song released in 2005, “Beaux dimanches” (“Beautiful Sundays”). The song’s scintillating lyrics include the lines: “Sunday in Bamako is the wedding day / Men and women put on their best boubous / The bazins are waiting for you / This is the wedding day.”

It became the hit song on an album that won two prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation awards the following year, including one for best “world music” album. There is an engaging paradox in two blind people singing about the beauty of bazin, and the floral patterns and alluring colours that make young women look so elegant that bachelors hastily vow marriage. Production process Hand-dyeing bazin can be labour-intensive for the women who produce it. Ms. Growing industry. Amadou & Mariam - Beaux Dimanches. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage - Malian Bogolan.

Nakounté Diarra, a traditional bogolan artist from Kolokani, Mali, came to the Folklife Festival in 2003. While presenting her work at the Festival, she was featured in an exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History called African Voices. Although most mud cloth artists work on their craft only from October to May, when it is dry and the crops can’t grow, Diarra is such a renowned artist that she works year round. Following in the footsteps of her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, Diarra began learning the art at the age of fifteen. Diarra has created many original designs as well as continuing more traditional patterns, but she always paints free hand, no hard edge needed.

In this video from the 2003 Festival, Nakounté Diarra demonstrates the traditional manner of bogolan production. click to enlarge and view captions. Fashion as Resistance: The Case of Mali. Mariah Bocoum. Mariah Bocoum. Mali – Inspiration from Africa | Tap4Call. Mali is ranked by the World Bank as one of the poorest countries in the world. African women in Mali developed specific skills to hand-dye fabric and started to use their creativity and resourcefulness to fight poverty. The hand-dyed cloth industry became a thriving article of trade in Mali. The women make a profit and the industry turned them into a supportive social group with a common purpose.

Hand-dyed polished cotton, called bazin, became the foundation of Malian fashion. An eco-friendly dyeing factory was constructed in Bamako along the Niger River. The bazin-factory is informal with no registration and is exporting to Senegal, Nigeria, USA and Europe. Resist-dyed fabrics in a variety of patterns and brilliant colors became a symbol of the Malian fashion market and cloth dyers are constantly creating new patterns. Call for free to Africa with Tap4Call smartphone app Like this: Like Loading...

"Bamako Chic: Threads of Power, Color and Culture" - ViewChange | PeaceMedia. BAMAKO CHIC: THREADS OF POWER, COLOR AND CULTURE. Bamako Chic: Women Cloth Dyers of Mali. I recently met an amazingly passionate filmmaker named Maureen Gosling. I was so excited to learn about her current documentary, Bamako Chic. The new film tells the story of women in Mali who create complex dyed textiles as not just a creative outlet, but also to support their families and communities economically. Maureen is having an event tonight at the Hillside Club in Berkeley to help raise funds to finish her film. The evening includes screening of footage from the movie, plus Malian music and food.

She writes: In Mali, as in other West African countries, cloth has served as social-capital, equity, wealth, inheritance and articles of beauty for hundreds of years. Related.