Burnished

When Zulu women potters innovate or move to a more urban setting, they are asked why they have abandoned tradition. Yet when they continue to follow convention or choose to stay in rural areas, art historians speak of their work as unchanging symbols of the past. Burnished rejects both stereotypes, acknowledging the agency of rural women as innovative artists and complex individuals negotiating a biased set of power structures. Featuring 90 color images, Burnished engages directly with individua