Event
The Dakkabar Connection: Robert E. Paige and the Global Crafts of the Black Arts Movement
Author: Chris Dingwall, Washington University in St. Louis
Comment: James Smethurst, University of Massachusetts Amherst
This is an online event.
When Chicago-based textile artist Robert Earl Paige designed the Dakkabar fabric set for Sears it marked both a turning point in Paige’s career and an illumination of the global political economy reshaping African American cultural production in the age of decolonization. An active member of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement and inspired by travel to newly-independent Senegal, Paige sold Dakkabar as a piece of Africa for the American home. Yet the fabrics also record Paige’s craft of creative (mis)translation. Reading Dakkabar as a conduit between the American and Senegalese consumer textile markets, this paper reframes the commerce of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement within the postcolonial Atlantic World.
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Online Event
The virtual seminar begins at 5:00 PM and will be hosted on the video conference platform, Zoom. Registrants will receive a confirmation message with attendance information.
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