| The Patterned Imagination examines certain visual repeat patterns in order to better understand their unique role in the production of cultural meanings. The specific focus of the study is on a constellation of patterns that emerge from magic squares, especially on West African textiles in an Islamic context. Magic squares are represented in patterns on many Islamic West African textiles as talismans with the power to effect protection and healing for the wearer. A pattern is also a blueprint, a guide for making something, and it is in this sense of the word that I contend the magic square acts as a "pattern engine" in West African visual cultures.;The textiles examined are in the collections of the Textile Museum of Canada, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The study analyzes how the meaning of their patterns has changed through their move from their originating space into an institutional space. |
