Thoughts and Reflections

On the West Coast of Africa, I went hunting for talismans and beads made according to secret and tried recipes characteristic of a particular area, tribe, village, or even a family. Every family, every village, and every area has their particular sign and their own particular way of making jewelry that besides its decorative value also has a ritual or amulet value.
How did I obtain these beads? I got them when some families opened their grandparent’s chests and sold me their forgotten jewelry with broken strings and scattered beads. They sold them to the modern inhabitants of ancient settlements because they thought of them as something unnecessary to keep any longer. I bought them from various people, from my reliable provider “the chief” in Nigeria or from friends in the city who had cousins in the country. I bought them as if I was buying tiny, unique, fast disappearing passwords for health, peace and love. At home I scrubbed them vigorously, strung them anew, putting their magic into a new magical harmony. I did it for two years, hastily, quietly, as if I was weaving a veil for some swan-like brothers of mine known only to myself.

Many years went by. And then, in the thick of the most insane year of the war in 1993, in the desolation and poverty of Belgrade, I put on an exhibition. The gallery was packed with people. It seems that the beads had been radiating their talisman charge. The genesis of the decision to send the part of exhibition which was for sale to Rovinj is especially interesting but it is a long story that demands a lot of listening so I will not tell it now. If the owner of the gallery wants to do it, it shall be done at the request of customers.

These are original beads that are made both for rituals and for everyday needs. It is unlikely that the instructions as to how to make them could be obtained. It seems that Africans themselves are not sure anymore of how it is done. They told me once that a naturally coloured stone is smashed into powder, mixed with black African honey from wild-bees and then cooked. Or the same thing is done with powder made from old glass beads. New jewelry was often made from the old. This can clearly be seen on some of the specimens. The old, smashed beads were mixed with the sticky syrup of certain plants, thereby acquiring a new character and look. Beads made thus have a story of their own–they are painted with organic colours according to certain signs and omens related to a certain proverb or a story.

When Europeans landed on the Gold Coast, they soon offered to the natives machine made copies of their patterns and shapes that had been made in European factories. Africans paid for them in gold, ivory and slaves. Glass beads from German, Czech and Belgian factories began their triumphant march on African settlements. Blinded by the regularity of their shape, the Africans strung the manufactured decorative beads along with hand-made ones and plated them with gold. Such jewelry is an expression of the charm and naivety of the African mentality. The marriage of native amulets and plastic, of creative masterpieces replaced by factory copies, that is how one recognises the jewelry of the African West Coast.

Respecting that fact, I strung them in the same mixed way. But some of the necklaces and bracelets I wanted to make exclusively with the material used by the indigenous people. Their value is that they come from the indigenous culture before the Portuguese came. In that time, some beads served as money. I also respected the understanding of beauty in Africa, which is a medley of colour and shape. Beads of different shapes, kinds, sizes and colours are mixed so the colours and patterns clash. There are beads with stripes, dark with light, gold with cheramics. My own contribution is present in an indefinable but perceptible presence.
The beads originate from Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, the Ivory Coast, Congo and Benine.

(Words spoken at the opening of a personal collection of African art in Belgrade, in 1996).