Tchiliwandele’s role as Soba meant that his permission, and help, was needed for the sisters to collect in his territory. Most of the 100 objects associated with him were collected from other people in his homestead and the surrounding area, who were under his protection. Diana and Antoinette relied on a network of Soba’s and other leaders to provide access to people and to allow them to move freely. Tchiliwandele was introduced to the sisters by his half-brother Kanguli, another Soba, who also worked with Diana and Antoinette.
Diana and Antionette Powell-Cotton were as interested in how things were made as they were in owning the finished objects. One of Tchiliwandele’s roles was to commission crafts people so that the sisters could record the entire making process and collect what had been made at the end. This series of photographs shows the brass coiled bracelet being made on the young woman’s arm. The photographs were taken in Tchiliwandele’s homestead. The photographic archive the sister’s created is as important as the objects themselves.
Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections is an exciting project looking at the Powell-Cotton Museum’s Angolan and Namibian collections in a different way.
In early March 2020 a small display was opened at the Powell-Cotton Museum which aimed to introduce the MAC project to both the museum's audience and to staff not directly involved in the project.
