23 June 2017
In the Kuba Kingdom, men and women work side by side to create highly symbolic cloth known simply worldwide as Kuba cloth. The cloth is fabricated from the leaf of the raffia palm tree, the plant with the longest leaves in the world. The transformation from leaf to textile is easy to understand, but difficult to execute. Discarded leaves are gathered, dried, softened, dye...
07 March 2016
Kuba art is renowned for their use of rhythmic geometric patterns that decorate all sorts of ritual objects, masks, textiles and these highly collectible ceremonial cups. The Kuba have been described as a people who cannot bear to leave a surface unadorned. It stems from a tradition that associates elaborate ornamentation with high status and prestige. You might say, to the Kuba people, m...
12 February 2016
In the 200 years between the early 1400s and the 1600s Portugal was the leader in world exploration and trade. While the rest of Europe was mercilessly ravaged by the Black Plague, Portugal remained largely unharmed due to its relative geographic isolation. Prior contact with the Islamic world had also given the Portuguese greater mathematical knowledge, allowing them to build ships sturdy...
06 June 2014
Deep inside the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa is the Kuba Kingdom. There, men and women work side by side to create highly symbolic cloths, known simply as Kuba cloth. The cloth is fabricated from the leaf of the raffia palm tree, the plant with the longest leaves in the world. The transformation from leaf to textile is easy to understand, but difficult to exe...