Existing comment:
Feminist.
The very existence of this sculpture is a feminist act.
Born in a Kalabari community in which women have historically been prohibited from sculpting in wood and metal, Sokari Douglas Camp has taken up her welder's torch as an artist in calm defiance of such restrictions. Douglas Camp's large, semiabstract, often kinetic, figurative works have been inspired by the sounds, movements, and colors of both communities to which she belongs -- African expatriates living and working in London, and Kalabari society in the Niger Delta.
This clapping figure recalls the coming-of-age ceremony (iriabo) that initiates Kalabari girls into womanhood. When presented to the community, the initiates are typically dressed in valuable cloth wrappers and adorned with coral beads and necklaces. Small Iriabo (Clapping Girl) claps her hands as though preparing the way for a major event. |