Globe Head Ballerina Essay
Globe Head Ballerina by Yinka Shonibare MBE
Born in London (UK) in 1962, growing up in Lagos (Nigeria) and later returning to London, Yinka Shonibare likes to refer to himself as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’ . He works across diverse artistic media (including sculpture, installation art, painting, photography, film and performance) to explore ideas about the construction of identity and issues of colonialism. His piece, the Globe Head Ballerina was installed at the exterior wall of the Royal Opera House, London in 2015 and will remain in place for five years. The work represents a life-size ballerina in a colorful tutu. Encased in a giant snow globe style sphere, the figure, whose head is a replica Victorian globe, rotates slowly. It depicts a strongly unconventional, racially inclusive image of a ballet dancer. The figure’s skin tone, garments, and location subvert the European image of the white ballerina in a white tutu. …show more content…
These fabrics that are stereotypically identified with African heritage have actually, however, been manufactured in the Netherlands and sold in England. Colonial powers such as the Dutch and English played great roles in industrializing the batik printing techniques and popularizing the textiles in foreign markets (e.g. West Africa). The fabrics posses a history and presence of their own, showing us that behind our conceptions of faraway places there often lurk entire different economic and political relations. Shonibare finds the fallacy of their signification interesting and they hence serve as a distinctive, signature element in his work. “They prove to have a crossbred cultural background quite of their own” , he says. The fabric in the piece creates an allusion of ambiguity and artifice, and the hybrid construction of
Born in London (UK) in 1962, growing up in Lagos (Nigeria) and later returning to London, Yinka Shonibare likes to refer to himself as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’ . He works across diverse artistic media (including sculpture, installation art, painting, photography, film and performance) to explore ideas about the construction of identity and issues of colonialism. His piece, the Globe Head Ballerina was installed at the exterior wall of the Royal Opera House, London in 2015 and will remain in place for five years. The work represents a life-size ballerina in a colorful tutu. Encased in a giant snow globe style sphere, the figure, whose head is a replica Victorian globe, rotates slowly. It depicts a strongly unconventional, racially inclusive image of a ballet dancer. The figure’s skin tone, garments, and location subvert the European image of the white ballerina in a white tutu. …show more content…
These fabrics that are stereotypically identified with African heritage have actually, however, been manufactured in the Netherlands and sold in England. Colonial powers such as the Dutch and English played great roles in industrializing the batik printing techniques and popularizing the textiles in foreign markets (e.g. West Africa). The fabrics posses a history and presence of their own, showing us that behind our conceptions of faraway places there often lurk entire different economic and political relations. Shonibare finds the fallacy of their signification interesting and they hence serve as a distinctive, signature element in his work. “They prove to have a crossbred cultural background quite of their own” , he says. The fabric in the piece creates an allusion of ambiguity and artifice, and the hybrid construction of