When a woman meets a group of women, all of them creative, only good things can result from this experience.
It´s the case of the photographer Margaret Courtney-Clarke and her photo documentary about the art of Ndebele women.
Based in West Africa, these women use vernacular art to enhance traditional architecture by painting them by hand using linear elements and “traditional design concepts borrowed from their ancestors“.
For Margaret Courtney-Clarke, the objective of African Canva work is:
My objective in this work is to document an extraordinary art form – vernacular art and architecture in West Africa – that is not transportable and therefore not seen in museums around the world. It is an attempt to capture the unseen Africa, a glimpse into the homes and into the spirit of very proud and dignified peoples. In much the same way as I photographed the art of Ndebele women, I have drawn on my personal affinity for the art itself, for methods, design and form, rather than the socio-anthropological or political realities of a people or continent in dilemma. These images portray a unique tradition of Africa, a celebration of an indigenous rural culture in which the women are the artists and the home her canvas. Margaret Courtney-Clarke, 1990
musart research lab 