“Dames de Couleurs / Colourful Ladies”–new DVD on women dyers in Mali

“Sanata and Dicko are dyers  in Mali. Sanata produces coloured bazin fabrics with her co-wives in Bamako.
Dicko lives in the bush in Dogon country and dyes loincloths using indigo.
They have amazing skills, and yet both constantly face the same challenge : ensuring a decent life for their children.”

“Dames de Couleurs” is a new Dvd exploring the continued vitality of dyeing traditions in Mali today, moving from urban Bamako to a village in Dogon country. Produced by Patricia Gerimont and Jean-Claude Taburlaux it will be available in September from http://www.cvb-videp.be/ – hopefully with an English subtitle version. Patricia Gerimont is the author of Teinturieres a Bamako: Quand la couleur sort de sa reserve (Ibis, 2008) which is one of the best recent books on an African textile traditions, available from French Africanist bookseller Soumbala.

Below are a few more of Patricia’s photographs – click on images to enlarge. All photographs in this post are copyright Patricia Gerimont. Please do not reproduce without permission.

Bamako

Dogon country

Recent European Publications on African Textiles

A brief round-up of recent European publications on sub-Saharan African textiles. A later post will cover recent books on African fashion. French Africanist booksellers Soumbala (www.soumbala.com) are a good source for most of these.

	Kerstin Bauer, Kleidung und Kleidungspraktiken im Nordern der Cote d'Ivoire (Lit Verlag, 2007) is Bauer's important doctoral thesis (University of Basel, 2005) which highlights the crucial but previously under appreciated role of the Dioula in West African textile history.
	Mai Diop, Pagnes... Panos... Les etoffes magnetique des Mandjak - Guinee Bissau - Cap Vert - Senegal (Les Ateliers d'Art Tesss, Saint-Louis) Beautifully produced booklet on Mandjak and Cape Verde cloths.
	Bouilloc, C et.al. Afrique Bleue: les routes de l'indigo (Edisud, 2000) - exhibition catalogue
	Anne Grosfilley, Afrique des Textiles (Edisud, 2005) - useful introduction to current textile production with emphasis on Francophone West African
	Anne Grosfilley, Textiles d'Afrique: entre tradition et modernite (Edition Point de Vues, 2006) - exhibition catalogue
	Mali: Photographies et Textiles Contemporains (Musee de Design et D'Arts Appliques Contemporains, Lausanne, 2003) - small exhibition catalogue
	Pauline Duponchel, Textiles Bogolan du Mali (Musee d'Ethnographie, Neuchatel, 2004) - important and substantial publication based on years of field research.
	Gravellini, Anne-Chantal, and Annie Ringuede. Blues et ocres de Guinee: Teintures vegetales sur textiles. (Paris: Sepia. 2005) - beautiful book with extensive photography
	Patricia Gerimont, Teinturieres a Bamako: Quand la couleur sort de sa reserve (Ibis, 2008) - superb and very well illustrated.
	Anne-Marie Bouttiaux et al. African Costumes and Textiles: From the Berbers to the Zulus (5 Continents, 2008) - coffee table book of Belgian private collection, worth getting for the costumes, hats etc, but the West African textiles are disappointingly ordinary and in some cases wrongly labelled.