Anyone interested in African embroidery or the new art being produced on machines is invited to two workshops sponsored by the Arts Centre at Dockyard.

UK professor Anne Morrell will be conducting two workshops over the next two weekends.

The former Manchester Metropolitan University instructor has also produced the special exhibit `Textiles Revisited' to be shown until December 8.

Although Prof. Morrell's expertise is in Indian textiles and embroidery, she has travelled extensively throughout Africa and has taught courses on the African fabric arts.

The idea for the follow-up visit came after last year's workshops on Indian art, in which it was suggested information about Africa might also be of interest here.

"I was asked, `what do you know about African embroidery','' Prof. Morrell said. "It's sad, but we in the west suffer in the paucity of information about people like Henri Mattise's appropriation of African art.

"It's very important that students see where the arts come from.'' About machine embroidery, Prof. Morrell said: "These workshops cover everything from the standard sewing machine to the industrial machine connected to a computer.'' "I hope there will always be both the hand embroidery techniques and the computer generated work,'' she said.

"When you think about it, they have been side by side for about 150 years.

There is even work where there is a mix of the two.'' African embroidery has a long and diverse history with the ancient Egyptian techniques being preserved from thousands of years ago to Moslem techniques in North Africa.

Of particular interest is the quilting and embroidery techniques used by women in Soweto Township, South Africa.

"They have developed this incredible applique work under Apartheid,'' she said. "They were not allowed to express themselves but they were able to produce beautiful and sophisticated work.'' Prof. Morrell described the heavily Moslem-influenced West African Hausa tradition, found mainly in northern Nigeria, which later adopted French sewing machines to embroider designs on clothing.

"They translated their hand designs onto machine work and now it has spread, combining the traditional and the new,'' Prof. Morrell said.

Originally found in the hinterland of Nigeria, the designs can now be traced along the West African coast.

"People have always been migrating around and when we see that something is a tradition, we should ask how long has this tradition existed,'' she said.

Part of Prof. Morrell's life's work is the preservation of Indian art where because of the difficulties of caste and gender, the old techniques are being lost.

"I've told students, who are middle-class that these things are being lost and I challenge them to go beyond their caste and class to help preserve the Indian heritage,'' she said.

"That's what I do. I drop little seeds in communities,'' Prof. Morrell said.

"I'm securing the history and techniques. I videotape and I don't edit them for future interpretation.'' For further information about Prof. Morrell's workshops contact the Arts Centre at Dockyard on 234-2809.

Function and art: British embroidery professor Anne Morrell will be conducting a workshop on African embroidery this weekend.

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