From Tradition to Innovation: Indigenous West African Textiles in Creative Interior Application

Abstract

This design experiments convert indigenous West African textile design elements from a limited application in clothing into a breadth of interior design pieces that are expected to have a wider appeal. Textile designing is an integral part of textile production in West Africa and by far the most predominant art practice in the region. Textile production techniques vary from one place to another in the region and some of the common techniques are tie-dyeing, tritik, batik, indigo dying, embroidery, patchwork, appliqué, discharge dyeing, direct printing and resist printing. Designs are developed from sources such as body paintings and tattooing, indigenous symbols, proverbs, occasions and major events, important personalities, natural and artificial objects. Other textile design forms have also evolved from textures produced by the actual processes of fabric construction and the effects of colour variations of yarns such as stripes, bars and checks. However, fabrics are designed mainly for clothing and to some extent craft items and that limits the patronage and application of those fabrics. Furthermore, the processes of designing and production are mainly manual and so reproduction or uniformity in mass productions and mass customisation is besieged with lots of challenges. These design experiments take a more comparative view of the indigenous West African fabrics and the central motifs in the design compositions are Adinkra and Adire and the background referenced Bogolanfini symbols. The human centred design approach was adopted for the practical experiments; it entails as a step-by-step guide to externalise creativity, taken cognisance of the people the designs are meant for. The background data came largely from documentation, archival records, and observation of physical artefacts. This project experiments with a breadth of materials such as lycra, canvas, soft velvet fabrics, foam, wood and techniques for a range of products such as retro chairs, cushions and wall panels.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 5 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.