Social Fabric: African Textiles Today at The British Museum

This exhibition takes a new look at the history and continuing significance of textile traditions in eastern and southern Africa, the patterns of global trade they reveal and the ways in which they have influenced some of the region's foremost contemporary artists and photographers. Creating and trading numerous types of cloth have been vital elements in African life and culture for at least two millennia, linking different parts of the continent with each other and the rest of the world. African Textiles Today shows how ideas, techniques, materials and markets have adapted and flourished, and how the dynamic traditions in African textiles have provided inspiration for the continent's artists.