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

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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