Africa Meets Africa

I attended a talk by Helene Smuts a few months ago sponsored by the International Women's Club of Johannesburg.

Helene began her journey to become an arts writer, publisher and film producer as an educator. She taught art in a Catholic school in Johannesburg during the waning days of apartheid. After apartheid was abolished in the 90's, her classroom became even more multicultural and multilinguistic and she became interested in the best way to facilitate an exchange of knowledge between teams of academic experts in history, art, mathematics and science on one hand, and on the other, rural based custodians of heritage and local knowledge systems.

From there, Helene went into museum education and the Africa meets Africa project developed out of a 1999 Dutch exhibition titled Africa meets Africa, curated by Dr. Erna Beumers, African curator of the then Rotterdam Museum of Ethnology. Helene was asked to present an education programme to accompany the exhibition showcasing African pieces taken from South Africa during colonial times.

As founder Director of the Non Profit Company Africa meets Africa for the past decade or more she has used this research to seek out solutions to classroom learning problems especially in rural schools. By departing from what is known and culturally meaningful, Africa meets Africa presents high school teachers and students with a visual language of learning which is accessible to those for whom English, as their third or fourth language, often presents a stumbling block to understanding for example the more abstract concepts of mathematics.

The sophisticated patterns and symmetries of inherited styles of Zulu beadwork and weaving and the balance and proportion of Ndebele and Basotho homestead wall painting design contain and may be used to illustrate mathematical ideas such as the Theorem of Pythagoras and a range of mathematical symmetries. While the relationship between mathematics and art is not a novel concept, recognizing the mathematical relationship in Ndebele art and using it to teach African artists about geometry probably is.

da Vinci

Mathematics and art actually have a long historical relationship. The ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks knew about the golden ratio and regarded it as an aesthetically pleasing ratio. They may have incorporated it and other mathematical relationships, such as the 3:4:5 triangle, into the design of monuments including the Great Pyramid, the Parthenon and the Colosseum.

Artists who have been inspired by mathematics and studied mathematics as a means of complementing their works include the Greek sculptor Polykleitos, who prescribed a series of mathematical proportions for carving the ideal male nude. Renaissance painters including Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci made use of mathematics in their work. 

Escher

In modern times, artists like M. C. Escher used mathematical forms intensively, while new branches including Penrose tiles and fractal art have been developed.

Dürer

And one of my all time favorite artists, Albrecht Dürer. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a German Renaissance printmaker who made important contributions to polyhedral literature in his book, Underweysung der Messung (Education on Measurement) (1525), meant to teach the subjects of linear perspective, geometry in architecture, Platonic solids, and regular polygons. Dürer was likely influenced by the works of Luca Pacioli and Piero della Francesca during his trips to Italy. 

Maybe this explains why I have been so attracted to Zulu and Ndebele art and craftwork and why Helen's talk resonated so deeply with me. As a mathematics and computer science major in college, it is only natural. 

Helene turned me on to a guide who will soon take Vince and I to visit some of the Ndebele artists and villages where she has worked. The highlight of our visit will certainly be a special Catholic Church which incorporates Ndebele art into its decoration. Can't wait!