The Africana collection: Norman Teague’s diasporic design
“The collection references face paint and scarring practices that bear ritual significance. At the same time, both paint and scarring are everyday practices of self-care and kinship. ‘Africana’ makes its own space within this polemic. It is simultaneously a declaration of intent and a perfectly human, warm thing — ‘comfortable with its Blackness’ — and shaped by one body for the use of others. The collection is tactile and tough.”
The introductory text for Teague’s show at R & Company attempted to transmit the designer’s voice
On the occasion of a significant 2020 exhibition at the New York gallery R & Company, the designer and educator Norman Teague built his “Africana” collection, steeped in the materials, rituals, and moods of West Africa. Teague is among a cohort of Black and Brown makers, based in Chicago, who recognize design as a tool for community transformation — as well as a discipline of making beautiful objects. The collection made this duality manifest.
Over the years, Teague had been a confidant and coconspirator. I wrote about his work in training young designers in Crain’s; profiled Theaster Gates, with whom he frequently partners, for Newcity magazine; crossed paths at the Obama Foundation; and hosted him for a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. So when Teague invited me to contribute text for the exhibition catalogue, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to amplify his work.
Our writing process was collaborative and, in that spirit, my description attempts to faithfully transmit Teague’s inimitable voice while lending some context for how his collection invokes both the Western design canon and, simultaneously, the strength of his diasporic identity. The catalog text is below.
Africana (2020)
In the “Africana” collection (2020), Teague enters a dialogue with West African rituals. The critic F. Philip Barash writes:
The collection references face paint and scarring practices that bear ritual significance. At the same time, both paint and scarring are everyday practices of self- care and kinship. “Africana” makes its own space within this polemic. It is simultaneously a declaration of intent and a perfectly human, warm thing – “comfortable with its Blackness” – and shaped by one body for the use of others. The collection is tactile and tough. Teague compares it to the work of artist Kara Walker, whose larger-than-life silhouettes, in their frankness, can land a powerful punch. And yet, Teague has these pieces speaking fluently to canonical Western industrial design.
As a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Teague is at the confluence of contemporary American design, engaging flows of modernist, brutalist, organic, and craft traditions. “Africana” acknowledges these traditions, but also provokes them. Sure, Teague’s work is intentional and its craftsmanship relentless. Sure, it speaks in design establishment jargon. But there’s something in the very posture of the pieces, Teague says, meant to tell you to “loosen up, motherfucker.”