Click on the map links to find the objects on our digital map.
Stop 1: Untitled, Vulcan series
Map link: Jewellery, Room 91
The artisan Emefa Cole trained both in Britain where she grew up, and in Ghana, where she was born. There she worked with the goldsmiths of the Asantehene in Kumasi to learn the traditional Ashanti lost-wax casting technique for gold, which she used to forge the cavernous spiral structure of this ring.
Cole was inspired by volcanic activity – both its destructive and life-giving capacities – to create the ring, which was shown at the Fashion and Design Week in Accra, Ghana, in 2013. Made from oxidised silver with applied gold leaf, its majestic design appears to have been hewn from the Earth's glowing core.
Stop 2: Costume worn by a dancer from Adzido Pan African Dance Company
Map link: Theatre & Performance, Room 105
This costume featured as part of the closing dance in Sankofa, a performance by the Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble, which ran between 1991 and 2001.
The skirt is made of printed cotton textiles known as ankara, African-print cloth or Dutch wax, which have been fashionable in West and East Africa since the late 19th century. Ankara as a textile is historically rooted in colonial global trade, as Europeans replicated Indonesian batik and began to export wax fabrics across Africa. Production began to shift to Africa in the 20th century, and Ankara has been used over the years as a signifier of the continent. The textile is however, one among many types of fabric which are used in Africa today, and therefore should be appreciated as part of, rather than the sum of, African textiles.
Stop 3: Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence
Map link: Paintings, Room 81
Alessandro de' Medici, known as the Black Duke of Florence, was of mixed parentage – his father part of the ruling Medici family and his mother of African descent. Known as a fashionable man, Alessandro became the ruler of Florence in 1530. The first hereditary Medici ruler and the family heir after decades of political instability in the region, he was assassinated in 1537.
In the 16th century, clothes were an integral part of projecting status. Alessandro here presents himself as a Renaissance man, wearing a white shirt, black doublet, gown and hat. Black clothing represented restraint and grace in Florence, while also being one of the most expensive types of cloth to produce at the time.
Explore more about this painting and Alessandro's presence across the museum through a cameo portrait in room 111 and his inclusion in the Fashioning Masculinities exhibition.
Stop 4: Tunisian Man's Sash
Map link: Britain (1760 – 1900), Room 122
This section of a sash is a skilful and rare example of Tunisian weaving from the 1850s. Silk weaving guilds have existed in urban areas of Tunisia since the 12th century, using silk produced naturally in the country but also imported from the 19th century onwards. This piece was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and was purchased by the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) as an example of a 'tasteful' and 'well-balanced design'.
The sash is a microcosm of the global collections that exist in many institutions across the UK. Though detailed information is not always kept for items like this, it is important that they are recontextualised and spotlighted as society re-examines its colonial past.
Stop 5: Sugar bowls with figures of America and Africa
Map link: Europe 1600 – 1815, Room 3
The representation of African people through the clothing attributed to them can reveal so much about the colonial mindset. Adorning a pair of 18th-century European sugar bowls, these figures reflect the commodification and exotification of Black people.
The male figure, representing America, is dressed in a brightly coloured feathered skirt and headdress. The female figure, portraying Africa, wears a flower-printed skirt and offers a lemon. Neither outfit is an accurate historical representation of clothing worn on the African or American continents. Instead, the figures present an exoticised European view of Africans reinforced by the then slave apologists.
