Yinka Shonibare’s 1990s epiphany in Brixton Market has prompted an extraordinary body of work. Then, he learned that the batik fabric that he’d associated with West Africa was inspired by Indonesian textiles, industrially produced in the Netherlands and then sold in Africa. He had the revelation he needed to subvert dubious notions of cultural authenticity and nationhood.
Ever since, he has used this material to explore the complexities and inequities of colonial history, and its legacies in the present, including the refugee crisis and climate change. Shonibare’s trick: to ally these weighty themes to aesthetic delight.
