Kɔdi
At the heart of Kɔdi are the female textile trader of Assigame market in Lomé, Togo, and their relation to wax print fabric, which through them became a symbol of community and women’s emancipation. Togolese market women, affectionately known as “Nana Benz,” played a pivotal role in the trade of these textiles, accumulating substantial wealth and becoming the first in the country to afford Mercedes Benz cars. These enterprising women did more than sell fabric; they assigned names and meanings to various prints, turning them into a unique communication system, a language that spoke before words. These textiles, with names like “If you want to say something to me, sit down and say it to my face,” “I run faster than my rival,” or “Darling, don’t turn your back on me,” were thus treasured not just for their representations but for what they visibly convey. The Nana Benz played a vital yet often overlooked role in the country’s history, particularly during the struggle for independence. Many of them secretly supported the independence movement by hiding messages within the fabric they sold and transported across the city. This undocumented history not only reframes the role of women in the fight for independence but also adds another dimension to the symbolic layers already embedded in the fabric itself. The multifaceted role of the Nana Benz is conveyed by Silvia Rosi through a series of portraits marked by camouflage strategies. Not only the artist has her subjects wear the same printed fabric as the backdrop so that they blend into the background, but she also produces negative prints, displaying images at an intermediate stage, “something hidden before it is actually developed.” Here the use of negative space is symbolic: the images displayed in their negative form represent stories yet to be fully revealed—histories that are “hidden in plain sight.” The Nana Benz portraits are punctuated by five square images of packaged objects evoking the items the women would carry around but also the secret messages they were easily able to deliver.
Silvia Rosi, born in Scandiano, Italy, in 1992, is an artist based in Lomé (Togo) and London (United Kingdom). In her practice she uses photography and the moving image to explore the space of memory and self-representation. She received a BA in Photography in 2016 from LCC, University of the Arts London. In 2020 she was awarded the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards for the series Encounter, which traces her personal story, drawing on her Togolese heritage.