My journey is an open sea, my boat, my island, no destination. My kanga is a blank cloth, There are no symbols, no words written. Leaving my home, forever searching for home.

The Kanga is a common artefact that holds centuries of East African history and tradition. The 165cm x 115m printed cotton fabric is sold in pairs and has been worn by the women of East Africa since the 1800s. The kanga holds value for each person, community and ethnic group. It is used as a wrapper for carrying babies, an apron, a nightgown, a shawl and a covering for modesty when reading the Quran or praying.

The historical movement and exchange of ideas that occurred through the trade routes which crossed the continent and region helped shape the design and use of the kanga. The specific designs printed on the borders of the kanga reveal influences from India, Indonesia, West Africa and many other places. A transnational phenomenon, these everyday items of apparel articulate a language of interpersonal relations. The inscriptions are used as a form of non verbal communication from the wearer to a specific person ranging from a rival to a mother-in law, or to the world at large.

The design of kangas is continually changing: responsive to social and cultural shifts in place, and as their wearers move around the world and are influenced by new homes and the longing for homes past. The inscriptions are key. However eye-catching the designs are, if the message is not correct, then the design is usually sacrificed.

In this work, I design a pair of kangas with messages for those of us in the diaspora. To reinforce the bonds to centuries of tradition, drawing on its transnational qualities, the kanga is re-imagined here as a method of communication. Through the work I investigate what the Kanga of the Swahili Migrant embodies today.

Perfumed with the scent of jasmine and oud, the Kanga of the Swahili Migrants and photographed within a domestic diasporic setting speaking to how the kanga manifests as a form of self-expression, non-verbal communication and modesty today. Situating the design, within the new home of a Swahili Migrant, I explore how hospitality manifests within the diaspora, within homes and within bodies too. The kanga calls for the migrant to come home to themselves within their new land and that something as simple yet complex as a piece of printed fabric can support them along that journey.