Hey there!
I’m back to announce the first iteration of the Threadscapes Digital Tapestry! Threadscapes is a digital mapping and storytelling project that traces the textures and traditions of African fabrics. It starts by mapping African textile designs. This project started out as a complement to the culturally situated design tool Omari CompuTiles and its use in K-12 computer science classrooms. Threadscapes expands the CompuTiles project by providing an additional tool to build culturally responsive and sustaining computer science experiences. On its own, the Threadscapes project joins a history of merging cartography and textiles as a medium to explore identity, history, and geography. Part archive, part storytelling, it brings together narratives, historical insight, and visual design to honor the ways cloth carries culture across time and space.
Here’s a little bit about the map and what makes it interesting! First, the map is interactive. An interactive map is a digital map that users can manipulate and explore. These maps usually allow users to use features zooming, panning, adding/removing layers, searching, filtering, and displaying information through pop-ups or panels. At the time of this publication, the Threadscapes map allows users to zoom and click to visit other pages. Inspired by Priya Shah’s Fabric Map of Africa, the Threadscapes project seeks to enhance user engagement with the fabrics and the countries through simple navigation and visual exploration.
The Threadscapes map begins centered on the continent of Africa, displaying a colorful layer of images over a base map. The visual representation of fabric over the base map reinforces the vibrant diversity of fabrics, each uniquely representing various cultures, social groups, genders, and trades. These textiles not only serve as a form of representation and expression but also embody the deep cultural significance and history of the regions from which they originate. While the map does not encompass every fabric on the continent, it does represent well-known, widely-used fabrics from each country. This choice reflects the bounds of time and scope of this project as well as the availability of information about fabric production and use historically and contemporarily.
The map is equipped with a layer of images and also a layer of polygons that represent each region of the continent. You can’t see these polygons but they are an important part of navigating the map. You can click on a country and it will take you to its respective region’s page. On these pages, I have listed each country’s formal and common names and date of independence/modern organization (another thought-provoking design choice). I also include a picture of the fabric(s), its name(s), and a short description of the fabric(s). This is another design choice I had to make based on my skills and the amount of time I had to learn and apply new skills. Let me just say that creating 5 pages to tell the stories of the fabrics was much more efficient than my original plan for creating a unique page for all 55 countries recognized by the African Union.
Speaking of the African Union, I followed their guidelines for which countries were represented on the map’s fabric overlay and how I divided the continent by region. I make a small statement about this on the top of each regional page. I believe in the sovereignty of African nations and tried my best to respect that although I grouped them by region. With sovereignty and grouping in mind, I was also challenged and intrigued by how fabric use transcended geopolitical boundaries. For example, fabric that is called “Ankara” or “wax print” in the west may be called “chitenge” or “kitenge” in the east or south. This is fueled by many things including trade and displacement of peoples. This is something I’d like to explore more in the future.
This project was a huge undertaking. From the outset, I knew that there were elements that I just wouldn’t get to finish, but I didn’t know just how much I would learn and do in such a short amount of time. Though I studied computer science education, I didn’t have a lot of programming experience outside of block-based programming and theoretical explorations. I entered the CHI fellowship as an eager novice programmer. I had a slow start creating the site but eventually became more efficient and organized when programming. However, the biggest part of this project was not just programming. It was the sheer amount of data, skill, time, and tools I needed to create the map overlay.
First, I needed to search for fabric for each country. The map that inspired me did not have a unique fabric for each country nor did it have each country represented, especially the small island countries– likely a limitation of a static, paper map print. I searched academic journals, magazines, online museum holdings, online stores dedicated to African fabric and social media to find examples of fabrics and their uses. Next, I needed to find accurate shapes of these countries to make cutouts of the fabric. I used Adobe Illustrator to make the cutouts from map outlines. During this process, I learned that the country cutouts did not align well, so I had to hand fit each piece together. It felt like I was sewing together pieces of a quilt. I paid special attention to the borders of each country, aligning them to their neighbors.
Once I had a fabric cutout for each country and fit them together, I made the map overlay. The map overlay presented its own challenges. The most time consuming part was ensuring the correct scale for each country. I started this process using trial and error, estimating the size of the file needed to accurately overlay the image. Eventually, I came up with a system for getting the scale right based on the zoom level of my map and the coordinates of the top left and bottom right of the map display– you can see the coordinates displayed on the map! When each country and island was represented, I created the clickable polygons over each region that takes users to the pages for Western, Eastern, Southern, Northern, and Central Africa that I described above.
Overall, this was an awesome adventure. I learned new skills, expanded my knowledge, and had a generative experience with wonderful people. I mentioned in my previous post that this project would also serve as a springboard for my faculty career (Yay! I’m employed). I’m happy to say that during the interview process the Threadscapes project went over well, inspiring conversation and collaboration. I’m excited to work on the next iteration of this project with my new colleagues and future students. I envision deepening the text describing the fabrics, improving the website’s overall aesthetic, displaying personal narratives about fabrics and identity, and adding a block-based coding interface to the site to support teaching and learning CS skills to novice programmers. This last element is the most exciting to me. It will add a new layer of learning in both CS and fabric construction as we program different fabric weaves.
This project is a work in progress, so if you’re interested in collaborating, reach out! See the project unfold at: https://akuyenga.github.io/threadscapes/ .
~Newly Minted Dr. Madison Allen Kuyenga
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