We made more bespoke “globe-heads” for recent work by Yinka Shonibare MBE.

Ibeji (twins) Riding a Butterfly

Dimensions: 265 x 235 x 105 cm
Medium: Fibreglass mannequins, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, plastic, fur and globes

Photographer credit, image courtesy: Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, Photographer: Thomas Liu

Over the past decade, Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. Shonibare’s work explores these issues, alongside those of race and class, through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and, more recently, film and performance. Using this wide range of media, Shonibare examines in particular the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. Mixing Western art history and literature, he asks what constitutes our collective contemporary identity today. Having described himself as a ‘post-colonial’ hybrid, Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions.

End of Empire

Boy Sitting Beside Hibiscus Flower

Dimensions: 191 x 145 x 91 cm

Medium: Fibreglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, fibreglass, resin, globe, leather and steel baseplate

Photographer credit, image courtesy: Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, Photographer: Thomas Liu