
Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
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Head of Department
Kande Ushafa came from a family of craftsmen, weavers and potters. Traditionally, pottery was considered a woman's exercise due to the gender normative roles conventionally related to cooking and domestic displays. The Pottery Training Centre aimed to celebrate these traditional processes and having women such as Kande Ushafa enabled a higher level of ideological understanding of water vessels, dishes and beakers such as in the present lot.
Consistent with the potter's overall body of work, Ushafa's skill and technique in designs via incised lines prior to firing is not only for aesthetic purposes, but alludes to local historical narratives and legends. In comparison to her contemporaries at the Abuja Training Centre, Ushafa has tended to veer away from zoomorphic imagery, opting instead for more decorative and geometrically symmetrical lines and shapes, offering a more open interpretation of her work to the viewer.
Bibliography
John Edgeler, Michael Cardew and stoneware, continuity and change, (Winchcombe: Cotswolds living Publications, 2008)