NCMA Virtual Exhibitions

By the North Carolina Museum of Art

Mixed Media

The Life of Gold

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There is often a gap between what we see and what we feel; between how we appear to others and how we see ourselves. Similarly, gold is more than meets the eye. In this collaborative project, architect-photographer Alun Be and artist-fashion designer Selly Raby Kane teach us to look past the shine of gold’s surface value to get at the personal stories that lie beneath.

The Life of Gold draws from collective memory and urban creativity to shape an imagined future. Kane created both ensembles to articulate how it feels to yourself be as precious and culturally embedded as gold jewelry is in Senegal. Kane and Be take this idea further and imagine gold itself as a lifeform that shapes the city of Dakar, where they live and work. A futuristic creature of gold leans toward a woman in a golden brocade jacket and gold jewelry who looks to this luminescent figure, while crouching within a starkly contrasting cement block background—what can often be the crumbling facades of daily city life. The contrasts echo the contradictions of personal experience, reminding us that dressing up can help us forget life’s difficulties and remember our own potential to be “as good as gold.”

Listen to the artists and the curator talk about The Life of Gold in the below videos.

Ensemble (boubou) with jewelry and accessories

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This modern, funky take on the flowing garment known as a boubou is, for designer Khadija Ba Diallo, a contemporary reimagining of a collective vintage soul. As Ba explains: “I want to re-create the boubou and make it cool . . . My personal style is mixing traditional and modern, like wearing boubous and Converse.” In this ensemble Ba creates a boubou out of contemporary camouflage, leaving the traditional embroidery—drawn from Islamic iconography/fashions—around the neck.

Ensemble with jewelry

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This glittering ensemble—by Senegal’s “Queen of Couture,” fashion designer Oumou Sy—embodies the concept and practice of sañse, and, through color and imagery, combines the historical memory of two famous Senegalese signares—Penda Mbaye and Anne Pépin.

Sy incorporates red—Mbaye’s favorite color—to recall the celebrated wife of Louis Faidherbe, French colonial governor of Saint-Louis. Mbaye is credited with creating Senegal’s national dish, thiéboudienne (boldly flavored fish and rice in tomato sauce). Pépin, known for her residence on Gorée Island off the coast of Dakar and for her relationship with French governor Stanislas de Boufflers, hails from eastern Senegal, site of the majority of Senegal’s gold mines. Pépin is represented by the golden embroidery in the shape of bay leaves.

Among her many international accolades, Sy is one of the first recipients of the Prince Claus Award. Her fashions are sold worldwide and have been featured in significant West African films and music videos.

Senegal, with major goldfields indicated in yellow

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Senegal’s unique and long-standing history of gold- and metalsmithing is evident in the archaeological excavations of the Rao region. Located near Saint-Louis, in northwest Senegal, this site yielded one of the most technically sophisticated golden regalia of Africa—the Rao pectoral.

No other commodity drove medieval trade the way gold did. Historical accounts cite Bambouk, which was mined from as early as the 4th to at least the 19th century, as one of the earliest and most important gold-mining territories in West Africa. It was Bambouk and then Galam, both along Senegal’s “River of Gold,” that first drew Europeans to the region.

From the 15th century onward, Europeans traded along the coast of West Africa. Yet, they touched only the perimeter of the vast, centuries-old trade network that stretched from the Middle East to North Africa and throughout much of the African continent. Goldsmithing techniques, styles, materials, and ideas—which particularly influenced jewelry—were readily shared because gold, which was made into twisted earrings or rods, was easily transported. For hundreds, if not thousands of years then, Senegalese gold jewelry has penetrated a sprawling network of style and material that overlaps and defies geographical confinement.

Ensemble with jewelry

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Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is a major fashion center in West Africa. Contemporary urban designers in Senegal use fashion to help navigate and define what is traditional, international, and chic. Gold jewelry is part of this larger fashion scene. By probing notions of international fashion and localized aesthetic choices, the contemporary ensembles throughout this exhibition challenge long-standing conventional ideas that pit “tradition” against “modernity.” Such dichotomies overlook the many diverse and overlapping influences evident in the dynamics of African style. “Traditional” clothing has always been a changing art form.