Ikeadi Ndukwu

Of Cloth and Culture

An exploration of the visual past of traditional Igbo garments and a visual present for Nigerian diaspora living in temperate western countries, Of Cloth and Culture is a collection of new garment archetypes that express the third culture of those living in this diaspora. In these garments, Igbo values, western methods of expression, and the will to inhabit both are balanced. This project speculates how, in the absence of the colonial suppression of native Nigerian visual arts, a natural hybridization of cultures is expressed through clothing. There is a unique culture that belongs to the diaspora, this is what it could look like.

“Culture does not make people. People make culture.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie