Aboubakar Sidiki Fofana

Mali

Year(s) attended: 2010, 2011

Weaving

Aboudar Sidiki Fofana utilizes organic hand-spun cotton and natural indigo and mud dyes to create exquisite textiles, which are spun on a traditional West African loom and hand-stitched to create the finished products.

He came to learn about traditional West African textiles by traveling around West African countries and speaking to his elders. From these experiences he began to feel an urgency to preserve the use of indigo and to revive the growth of biological indigo and of organic cotton in West Africa, particularly in Mali.

Aboubakar’s craft has also been highly influenced by his time in Japan and in France, and he feels that time and the changing nature of matter are the primary themes behind his work.

His Sublime Indigo initiative addresses all of these priorities by teaching the techniques of textile production and by developing a textile industry in West Africa based on principles of sustainable development and respect for the environment.