African Alchemy - the intersect between art and science in indigenous knowledge
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Transcript of African Alchemy - the intersect between art and science in indigenous knowledge
Dialogue on Progressive EnlightenmentNorth Carolina A&T State University
17th March 2011
Nyokabi Musila, PhD
AFRICAN. ALCHEMY.
The intersect between art and science in indigenous
knowledge
Pharmacy
“Indigenous Pharmacy”Nominal reincarnation
Ancestral learning
Western education and socialization
My journey: going full circle
Afrika
AfryqahBerbers in Sudan?
Africa 55 COUNTRIES
1,000,000,000 PEOPLE
40+ languages spoken
KiSwahili and English
KENYA
THE POLITICIZATION OF CULTURE
“If we have lost touch with what our forefathers discovered and knew, this has been due to the system of education to which we were introduced.” “This system of education prepared us for a subservient role to Europe and things European. It was directed at estranging us from our own cultures in order the more effectively to serve a new and alien interest.”- Kwame Nkrumah
I speak to myANCESTORS
FOREIGNin a tongue
Kuba Mukenga mask (DRC)
Form is implicit to function
AFRICAN ART
AFRICAN ART AND WESTERN SCIENCE
Translations to European disciplines are partial, highly interpretative and in danger of misrepresenting the indigenous view
- Mudimbe’s “Invention of Africa”
1. AFRICAN ART AND MATH
Fractals are repetitions of similar patterns at diminishing scale
⅓
African Fractal Geometry
⅓
The Cantor set
“When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn't even discovered yet.“-Ron Eglash
African FractalsFrom homesteads to hairstyles
Dr. Gloria Gilmer
2. AFRICAN ART AND CHEMISTRY
Ife Kingdom bronzes
Forced Europeans to re-think of the place of Africa in art
Ife > Nigeria > West Africa
A short film about the bronze cast process of the head of an Ife King
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_KeN2I_kQ
3. AFRICAN ART AND MEDICINE / PSYCHOLOGY
• Music• Medicine Men• Diviners
African world view on good health – body, mind and spirit
SENGENYA MUSIC
Medicinal Plants
A clip from a docu-film: My grandfather, Mulyungi wa Muli,
on Medicinemen and Diviners
http://www.sci-cultura.com/tv
PAST TO PRESENT
The individual vs. the community
The personal narrative builds the collective narrative
Gender balance and contribution to society
People live with contradicting beliefs
nairobi
http://mutuamatheka.wordpress.com/@truthslinger
Spirituality meets design
Distinctive, meaningful architecture in a globalised 21st Century world
1. African Fractals
“The denigration of all things African surely contributes to this excitement and astonishment”- Dr Kwame Opoku
The Ife exhibition did not tour African countries
The return of looted African artefacts
2. African Art and Politics
In some Asian and African countries, 80% of the population depend on traditional medicine for primary health care
- World Health Organization
3. African Medicinemen
Association for African Medicinal Plants
Mandate• Address lack of regulation
• Document African herbal medicines to international medicinal standards
http://www.aamps.org/
b: http://www.sci-cultura.com
e: scicult{at}gmail{dot}com
t: @sciculturist