Addoley Dzegede is a Ghanaian-American artist whose work explores notions of authenticity, belonging, place and hybrid identities. Using various media, she explores the metaphorical potential of textile materials, traditions and how colour and pattern are used to attribute belonging.
Bittersweet, a series of ongoing projects, continues Dzegede's exploration of the history of decorative objects and "traditional" textiles. While researching traditional textiles, she discovered that further inquiry reveals intertwined histories involving trade, mimicry, exploitation and transitions between artisanal and industrialized processes. Her recent interests include Dutch wax prints (now more identified with Africa than with their country of origin) and Dutch sitsen (chintzes originally from India) which are used in traditional Dutch clothing.
Recently, she has expanded her explorations by using cocoa, Ghana's main cash crop, as a metaphor for the bitterness of her attraction to seemingly harmless decorative artifacts that reveal darker stories when we examine the historical links and entanglements behind them.
Addoley Dzegede (United States) is in residence at the Cité internationale des arts through the program of the University of Washington at St. Louis - Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts.