Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

In the portrait by Winfred Nana Amoah, lace both reveals and conceals, becoming a quiet metaphor for how identity moves through history and inheritance. The fabric softens the surface while carrying deeper meaning, suggesting that what is visible is only part of a larger story shaped by memory and lineage.

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

Once associated with European luxury, lace has been reimagined across West Africa and woven into garments such as the kaba and slit and the iro and buba, transforming its symbolism. No longer a marker of colonial prestige, it has become a medium of self expression, status, and cultural reinterpretation. Through adaptation, it shifts from borrowed ornament to reclaimed narrative.

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

In Amoah’s portrait, lace is not mere decoration. It becomes dialogue. It speaks to hybridity, resilience, and the layered nature of identity, where tradition and modernity coexist and where fabric holds both history and agency.

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue

Lace as Language: Identity in Dialogue