Contemporary African Fashion

7. Using the Past to Sculpt the Costume of the Future: An Interview with Kandioura Coulibaly

J a n e t G o l d n e r Using the Past to Sculpt the Costume of the Future An Interview with Kandioura Coulibaly Kandioura Coulibaly is an exceptional artist who makes jewelry and costumes for Malian cinema, and theater, as well as for festivals and exhibitions in Mali and internationally. He is a founder of the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane, a pioneer collective of six contemporary artists who have been working together for thirty years. They are largely responsible for having elevated bogolan, a traditional textile technique used to decorate garments, to an important artistic symbol of national and even pan-national identity. The Groupe Bogolan Kasobane has been collecting beads, textiles, costumes, and other cultural objects for many years as a way of preserving the symbols and signs of beauty of the Malian peoples. Their passion is the preservation and perpetuation of the cultural heritage of Mali by researching the past and bringing the findings into the present and the future as saved artifacts and concepts, ways of thinking and being, and as contemporary works of art. Many aspects of Malian culture are in danger of being lost due to the cultural disruption and erasure that resulted from colonialism. Janet Goldner 106 Kandioura’s ambition is to open a museum in Bamako. He wants the objects in the collection to be of service to people, to help educate people, especially Malian youth, about their past. The costumes Kandioura produces, which are inspired by the collection, are not for sale but become part of the collection. What we know as the history of Africa has largely been written by outsiders who explored, exploited, colonized her. At best, they misunderstood. At worst, they simply lied to further their own interests. Kandioura is one of many African intellectuals who are actively reconstructing, uncovering, researching the hidden history that is under the history as it has been written. Kandioura draws heavily on his own Sarakole (Soninke) heritage as well as the other ethnicities of Mali. His contribution is his ability to interpret the stories that are told by the material culture that remains. Kandioura and I have been working together for fifteen years in a collaboration that began during my Fulbright Senior Research grant in Mali in 1995. Our collaboration is a friendship based on mutual respect and admiration. It helps that we are about the same age. In 2002, I published an article about Kandioura in Beadwork Magazine. I curated the first exhibition of the work of the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane in the U.S. in 1998. In 2003, we spent a week in Karenguimbe, the village where Kandioura was born in Mali near the Mauritanian border. I am an artist. My inspiration comes from the observation of and participation in diverse cultures both in the United States and abroad. My interest has included West Africa as well as my own layered American background. I first traveled to West Africa in 1973. Since 1995, my involvement with Mali has been one of bridge building with many projects both in the United States and in Mali. This article results from conversations that took place at Kandioura’s home in Bamako in November 2004. The conversations were recorded in French. The transcription and translation are mine. What Is Fashion and Why Is It Important? Janet: There are many objects here in your Museum of Life: beads, fabric, bogolan , teapots, wood from the well. With these objects we can learn the history of people, of culture: how they lived, what was important for them, how they made up their lives. In our discussions over the years, I’ve understood that fashion, how people dress, is an important part of life. Using the Past to Sculpt the Costume of the Future 107 Kandioura: When I talk of fashion, I think of the fashion of life and the fashion of dress. The fashion of life obligates people to adapt their fashion of dress. The objects that surround people permit them to make their way of life. A farmer needs a life that facilitates the raising of crops. A herder needs to conform to his herd. People need ways of life that conform their thoughts with their environment. Clothes are a second skin between the body and the regard of others. Clothes are also a defense of the body, of all the systems of organization inside the body. Clothes are an exterior protection...