https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/4fq4hrgxvn/wax-print
Interesting article on the BBC last month, I won’t bore you with the details but in a nut shell the story goes: the popular bright African fabric everyone knows has its origins in Indonesia where wax dying created colorful Batik fabric, this was traded by the large colonial companies, the technology was taken to Europe, and finally the Dutch East India company brought the fabric to Africa. To this day, the Dutch company Vlisco supplies fabric to Africa from its factories in the Netherlands.
The article made me think about what goes into building a cultural artefact. Human societies (I think) should aim to interact and assimilate the good while rejecting the bad in one another. Right now there is a lot of pain and a heightened awareness of racial injustice and history. Should we deny how much cultures around the world have been enriched by the assimilation of foreign practices and/or artefacts if this was a result of a system built on racism and oppression? Does the Indonesian origin and Dutch delivery of batik fabric make the current iteration of fabric design any less synonymous with Afro style? And finally how is this any different from cultural Appropriation? I think with African fabric its very obvious that the Indonesia batik fabric was never appropriated by/for the African people, the result is a natural evolution of African style in an interconnected world, just as European and Asian fashion has evolved. Assimilation is a natural process, something to be encouraged when there is good to be gained. Appropriation is a wicked deliberate practice that is almost always done by the powerful to the powerless. But more on that in my next post…
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