TRNK presents PROVENANCED, an exhibition of contemporary designs that reference African and Indigenous aesthetics.
From the 20th-century modernist art movement (i.e Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti) to turn-of-the-century Art Deco design (i.e. Victor Courtray, Pierre Legrain), African and Indigenous works have forever evolved Western design language. Despite this enormous influence, rarely can we collectively speak to the historical significance of these references. Influences have either gone unacknowldeged, or have become abstracted to the point of anonymity.
PROVENANCED asks what it would mean to establish a canon of African and Indigenous-inspired design that exists outside a colonial legacy of extraction and appropriation. By presenting established and emerging designs in context with works that serve as their creative genesis, we aim to start an honest dialogue around the value of these creative outputs.