New Essay: The Modern Makonde Sculpture Movement
We've published The Modern Makonde Sculpture Movement, an essay tracing carving traditions from the Mueda Plateau — where masks were once carved for a single initiation rite and then set aside — to the shetani and ujamaa genres that emerged from the same tradition in 1950s and '60s Dar es Salaam.
The essay looks at how, within two generations, Makonde carvers working in hardwood transformed a ritual practice into one of East Africa's best-known modern sculptural idioms.