GROUP50:50

FR 28.11.2025
17:00 - 18:00 – We call it Tshigan (ça coûte de l’or)
18:00 - 20:00 – SESSION 1 : Swiss textiles to the world! A colonial history
20:30 - 22:30 – SESSION 2 : Highlife in Basel! Listening to the UTC archives

SA 29.11.2025
11:00 - 13:00 – SESSION 3 : Know what you wear! Wax prints today
13:30 - 15:30 – SESION 4 : WAX Prints Future Design! Open Lab

Everyone knows the colourful cotton fabrics we call ‘African wax prints’. But hardly anyone knows their colonial history. And who would have thought? Switzerland played an important role in spreading these fabrics in West Africa. In the mid-19th century, a Dutch company copied an Indonesian printing technique, and the Basel Mission’s trading company created a market for it on the Gold Coast.

In talks, films and installations, designers, artists and researchers from Africa and Europe shed light on the colonial entanglement between Switzerland and West Africa over two centuries, focusing on the production and trade of colourful cotton fabrics. WAX ENCOUNTERS is the first part of a multifaceted theatre and fashion project by GROUP50:50.

Photo by Kofi Amankwah

Funded by Basel-Stadt / Basel-Landschaft

GROUP50:50 in coproduction with Kaserne Basel, Culturescapes and Vorarlberger Landestheater

In collaboration with 4TheKultur – Promoting and sharing the beauty and diversity of Black culture, TaDA – Textile and Design Alliance, Mission 21 / Archive of the Basel Mission, Museum of Cultures Basel, Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel

With Edwige Dro, author (Abidjan), Percy Nii Nortey, visual artist (Kumasi), Kojack Kossakamvwe, guitarist (Kinshasa), Austin Nortey, fashion designer (Kumasi), Eva-Maria Bertschy, director and author (Basel), Elia Rediger, artist and musician (Basel), Luca Maier, dramaturg (Berlin), Prince Toffa, artist (Cotonou), Dunja Herzog, visual artist (Basel), Helen Elands, art historian (Brussels), Veit Arlt, historian (Basel), Serena Owusua Dankwa, social anthropologist (Basel) and Isabelle Logovi, founder of Afrobelle fashion.