Overview
Languages of West African Marketplaces showcases 12 life-size hand-quilted and embroidered portraits created from combinations of photographs taken in the marketplaces of Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) and Ghana, where secondhand clothing discarded by the United States and Europe plays a central role in the economy of goods. Choumali (b. 1974) has made her birthplace of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where she continues to live and work, a central subject of her photographic practice. There she encountered the prevalence of bold English-language slogans on T-shirts worn by individuals who do not speak English in the markets; she became intrigued by the dissonance between these designs and the lives of the individuals wearing them.
Works
