Aso ikele (1948)

Used clothes from Manchester, printed fabric from Nigeria

23.294 x 23 FT

2012

Aso Ikele, meaning ‘cloth used to protect the home’ in the Yoruba language, is a textile work made for ‘We Face Forward’ exhibition and it takes the Whitworth Art Gallery’s textile collection as its starting point. The collection ranges from textiles made in Manchester for export to the West African market in the eighteenth century, to fabrics by contemporary makers in Mali who supply DKNY with hand-spun cotton.

Combining materials and narratives from Lagos and Manchester, Udondian weaves myths and histories into her own textiles, creating her own hybrids and questioning how stories become histories by generating fictitious histories to accompany her piece.