{"id":940,"date":"2016-04-29T11:33:55","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T10:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/?p=940"},"modified":"2017-05-01T13:01:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T12:01:58","slug":"the-wearable-afro-cosmology-of-selly-raby-kane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/the-wearable-afro-cosmology-of-selly-raby-kane\/","title":{"rendered":"The wearable afro-cosmology of Selly Raby Kane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This crystal of time documents a metamorphosis that puts the clothing and unclothing of the black body at its center. Touched by light, the dancers shed their succint clothes for uniforms made of plastic and shiny fiber. The change of costume signals the invisible change that seals the rebirth of the dancing figures into otherworldly beings. The iridescent outfits that capture light and sound overlay the numb mortal skin and remodulate the bodies\u2019 capacity to feel. They irradiate shocks of energy that fragment linear time until movement is multiplied and redoubled, perceptions rewired, and life gives one last sight before disappearing into the black core of a time warp.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XBdBPiRywIA\" width=\"950\" height=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Ibakuu, \u201cDjula Dance\u201d, 2015<\/h5>\n<p><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This futuristic tale is the brainchild of the Senegalese producer Ibakuu, created to accompany \u201cAlien Cartoon\u201d, a fashion show by designer Selly Raby Kane<sup><strong>1<\/strong><\/sup>. \u201cDjula Dance\u201d uses the rhythms of the Djolas from the Casamance region of Senegal to tell Kane\u2019s story of an African city invaded by aliens<sup><strong>2<\/strong><\/sup>. The image of the time warp that molecularizes matter into pure energy aptly comments on the designer\u2019s surreal fashion philosophy that combines materials, textures, and artificial applications to weave the story of a contaminated and heteronomous present.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Audiences expect nothing short of groundbreaking from designers \u2013 novelty being fashion\u2019s most valuable asset \u2013 and Kane\u2019s tactile storytelling unveils an eclectic exploration of the hidden facets of normality, where the alien is found in the everyday.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-952\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-1.-Alien-Cartoon-F_W2014.jpg\" alt=\"Image 1. Alien Cartoon F_W2014\" width=\"682\" height=\"1023\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-1.-Alien-Cartoon-F_W2014.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-1.-Alien-Cartoon-F_W2014-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-1.-Alien-Cartoon-F_W2014-768x1152.jpg 768w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-1.-Alien-Cartoon-F_W2014-683x1024.jpg 683w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Selly Raby Kane, \u201cAlien Cartoon\u201d Fall\/Winter 2014<\/h5>\n<p><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A prominent member of <i>Les Petites Pierre<\/i>, an art collective headquartered at Ouakam (Dakar), Kane mobilizes past, present, and future sources of inspiration to create a wearable version of Afro-cosmology. For \u201cAlien Cartoon\u201d, her Fall\/Winter 2014 collection, the thirty-something went back to the sci-fi films she loved to watch as a child and her passion for narratives set in alternate realities. But this is not the only time Kane puts her sartorial genius to forge an otherworldly Africa. Rather, her creations are always crafted as uniforms of combat: ensambles to put on in the event \u201cthe alter destiny\u201d invoked by Sun Ra<sup><strong>3<\/strong><\/sup> finally happens.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While \u201cAlien Cartoon\u201d invents an imaginary world, Kane\u2019s other collections extract the futuristic and the unreal from present circumstances. \u201cDakar City of Birds\u201d (Fall\/Winter 2915) is the best example of this approach. The collection pays homage to the designer\u2019s hometown, featuring daywear outfits that mix bomber jackets, pencil skirts, kimonos, jumpsuits, and cozy sweaters in a variety of patterns, decorative elements and materials, including PVC and bazin. Giant insects are a staple of the collection, along with birds and geometric shapes. Kane says she wanted to acknowledge their beauty and detail<sup><strong>4<\/strong><\/sup>, but placed on shirts and skirts they add a touch of the dystopic to the ensambles. They act as a tactile reminder of the inevitable (albeit often unwilling and unwelcome) exchanges taking place between human and animals. The fly, especially, is part and parcel of Africa\u2019s negative stereotype. The image of weakened children and their flies-swatting mothers has long appeared on Western media as an allegory of the continent\u2019s perceived parasitism and defeat. In popular cinematography, the fly is an agent of the apocalypse that inspires Cronenberg\u2019s tale of an impure and uncontrollable becoming.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-954\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/apif_selly_raby_kane_FW15_DSC1702.jpg\" alt=\"apif_selly_raby_kane_FW15_DSC1702\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/apif_selly_raby_kane_FW15_DSC1702.jpg 682w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/apif_selly_raby_kane_FW15_DSC1702-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Selly Raby Kane, \u201cDakar City of Birds\u201d Fall\/Winter 2015, photographer: Jean Baptiste Joire<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Kane draws from this body of pop-cultural references and puts our collective unconscious literally on our sleeve. The fly is there, on her creations, to announce that parasitic contamination is indeed taking place, first and foremost in the redistribution of agency and the powers to act that Africans are claiming for themselves. This reflection on post-humanism is one of the tenets of Afrofuturism.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>[T]he erosion of the line separating human and nonhuman, nature and culture, and in the displacement of the human as the only depository of agency, in favour of a networked dynamics of interaction between humans and the non-human. This recombinant relationship between human and technology mutates what we know racialized cultural production to be. It re-assigns identity and upturns racial recognition.<\/i><strong><sup>5<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If \u201cDakar City of Birds\u201d is an attempt to incorporate, and therefore make familiar,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">the daily transformations of the metropolitan landscape<sup><strong>6<\/strong><\/sup>, it is also itself an intervention on the effects of such changes on cultural production. Particularly, it relates to the dynamics that are pushing young Africans to react to the encroachment of non-human forces on their condition of living, be they globalization, neo-capitalism, environmental disaster, Chinese neo-colonialism, or \u201cmodernity\u201d. By making these changes wereable, Kane\u2019s fashion collection experiments with a becoming-city of bodies alienated from their surroundings.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-959\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-25.jpg\" alt=\"selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-25\" width=\"326\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-25.jpg 715w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-25-211x300.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px\" \/><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-955\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015.jpg\" alt=\"Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015\" width=\"309\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015.jpg 798w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015-768x1155.jpg 768w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Selly-Raby-Kane-Dakar-City-of-Birds-Collection-FW2015-Bellanaija-February2015015-681x1024.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 309px) 100vw, 309px\" \/><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-960\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-1.jpg\" alt=\"selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-1\" width=\"309\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-1.jpg 715w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-1-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/selly-raby-kane-fall-winter-2015-collection-dakar-city-of-birds-1-681x1024.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 309px) 100vw, 309px\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Selly Raby Kane, \u201cDakar City of Birds\u201d Fall\/Winter 2015, photographer: Jean Baptiste Joire<\/h5>\n<p><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So what to make of the infecting promiscuity that the flies in Kane\u2019s delicate sartorial compositions refer to? Certainly they pose a threat, but the designer seems not to be afraid of it. Rather, her flies herald the unmaking of the myth of purity that consigns Africa to an unscripted present. They are the symbols of an Africa in the making.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But African designers are not new to promoting a positive view of promiscuity in their creative work. Other eminent Afrofuturist designers have preceded Kane. The most prominent of these is Oumou Sy who, for the past three decades has exposed Dakar\u2019s technological soul with <i>cyberfemmes<\/i> who wrap their bodies in modernity with ballgowns and <i>boubous<\/i> adorned with CDs, or alter-tops decorated with perfume bottles (Mustapha). This matrilinear heritage helps Kane express a vision of the future steeped in racial and neocapitalist tensions, where fashion channels a new outlook on the self-mutating relationship between Africans and their surroudings, blackness and modernity.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-950\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-4.-Oumou-Sy-Cyberfemme-.png\" alt=\"Image 4. Oumou Sy Cyberfemme\" width=\"682\" height=\"852\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-4.-Oumou-Sy-Cyberfemme-.png 510w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/Image-4.-Oumou-Sy-Cyberfemme--240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Oumou Sy, \u201cCyberfemme\u201d, 1997, photographer: Mamadou Tour\u00e9 B\u00e9han<\/h5>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">COVER :<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"field-content\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.designindaba.com\/videos\/conference-talks\/selly-raby-kane-otherworldly-fashion-dakar\">Selly Raby Kane on otherworldly fashion in Dakar<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">To go further :<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">1 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sellyrabykane.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.sellyrabykane.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">2 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/makingafrica.net\/2015\/04\/featured-workselly-raby-kane-alien-cartoon-autumnwinter-20132014-collection\/\" target=\"_blank\">Making Africa : &#8220;Selly Raby Kane: Alien Cartoon, autumn\/winter 2013\/2014 collection&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">3 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PeZI3j8GZ_s\" target=\"_blank\">Sun Ra &#8211; The Alter Destiny<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">4 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrswapoenje.com\/?p=3082\" target=\"_blank\">Mrs Wapoenje: &#8220;Selly Raby Kane: Beyond Fashion Boundaries&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">5 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkmatter101.org\/site\/2012\/11\/29\/\u201cmy-measurement-of-race-is-rate-of-vibration\u201d-afrofuturism-and-the-'molecularization'-of-race\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dark Matter : &#8220;My measurement of race is rate of vibration: Afrofuturism and the &#8216;molecularization&#8217; of race<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">6 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nataal.com\/selly-raby-kane\" target=\"_blank\">www.nataal.com\/selly-raby-kane<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man and woman dance to the hypnotic rhythm of synthesized drums and distorted singing, their stomping feet raising clouds of dust from barren earth, their upper limbs drawing elliptic figures against a backdrop of nebulous galaxies. In this depthless void where stars pulsate from the exposed heart of colored clusters, the lone dancers twist under the invisible pressure of the hammering sound. In gravity-defying gymnastics they move under a fluorescent ray of blue light that beams down from the eye of a nebula. They are being summoned. A ladder appears leading somewhere, nowhere. Is this dystopia or utopia? The scene gives no hint as to its history, whether the characters are welcoming or resisting the call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,27],"tags":[37,34,33],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blackboard","category-essay","tag-black-swag-empowerment","tag-black-future-art","tag-afrofuturism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}