On July 22 Dr. Jessica Stephenson, associate professor of art history at Kennesaw State University and interim associate dean of COTA (College of the Arts) and previous curator of African Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, presented a program about the complex history of a pan-African textile commonly called African Wax Print.
Jessica traced its initial history in Europe by way of Asia to its subsequent embrace and development in Africa as a dress form infused with rich visual-verbal communication to its current embrace within global fashion arenas. She focused on examples of textiles she collected in Ghana, Nigeria and the Congo. Jessica provided spectacular pictures of different print designs and explained their meanings as well as the context in which each particular design might be worn.
Submitted by Gail Goodwin
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