Dandara Maia

Exhibitions & Projects
  1. YES WE CAN - ARTE Premiere  
  2. Linden-Museum Digital 
  3. Floating Assemblies
  4. Not Yet
  5. Osun on the moon
  6. WAXATLAS Exhibition
  7. Mapping Ankara

Publications 

About


I am a transdisciplinary researcher and curator, navigating the intersections of material culture, visual anthropology, and fashion studies. My doctoral research at the University of Bayreuth's Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence critically examines the cultural narratives embedded in wax print textiles, focusing on their materiality and African identity. Operating between Brazil and Nigeria, I investigate how these hybrid fabrics serve as carriers of Africanness despite their colonial history. I engage with identity, decoloniality, and the tensions between the modernity framework in the postcolonial contexts of Nigeria and Brazil. With a foundation in fashion design and visual arts, my work at the Iwalewahaus Museum and in curatorial practice seeks to challenge and reframe the discourse surrounding African material culture, contributing to dialogues on decolonization and critical fashion theory.

As an Afro-Brazilian, I grew up in Rio and relocated to Germany in 2019, where I am based today, to pursue my academic career. Apart from being a researcher and curator, I am the mother of little Vicente.

Ulm, Germany

CV
Contact
dandara.maia[at]uni-bayreuth.de
danda.rrra
dandaramaia

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Mapping Ankara


Study of the pathos formula of the Nymph Paper collage and alcohol-based markers on a journal. 
2020
Dandara Maia



Waxatlas Series of panels. Photographs, fabrics, and drawings. 70x100cm
2020-ongoing.
Dandara Maia
 Ankara, or African wax prints, are more than printed cotton fabrics. Originating from Javanese batik and carried through colonial routes to West Africa, these prints are a legacy of colonial endeavors but also of resistance and adaptation.

My ongoing PhD research project, Mapping Ankara, traces these intricate layers of different temporalities and spatialities into a visual map of ankara’s evolving African identity. Drawing on Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Bildatlas, I developed Waxatlas, a curatorial and visual analysis methodology that confronts the temporal and emotional threads embedded within these fabrics. Through the panels, I juxtapose images from diverse archives, field photographs, and sketches to capture the enduring presence of ankara —its Africanness, its migratory stories, and its layered memories.

This methodology navigates the intersections of materiality and memory, where the prints that circulate from Nigeria to Brazil and beyond unfold across spatial and temporal boundaries, collecting sensuous experiences in a continuum of fabrication of its African identity.
   
Javanese batik influence on florals

Study of classic wax print "Record"

Photographs: Dandara Maia