While working in Ghana as a Canada World Youth volunteer in 1995, Michelle Willard admired the brightly printed fabrics worn by locals. The mass-produced cloths mixed traditional patterns with portraits of politicians and their slogans and symbols. It was like getting a crash course on Ghanaian current events from people's outfits. In 2001, Willard returned as a grad student to collect samples for the exhibit Wearing Politics, Fashioning Commemoration, opening Sunday (February 22) at the Museum of Anthropology. "You buy this cloth in the Accra markets right after an event has occurred," she told the Straight. "The factories print them in large quantities. Groups of women will all buy the same cloth and have the same design made, then go together to the post-party. It could be celebrating anything: an election, a new church group, or the opening of a university."

For the exhibit, which runs through 2004, Willard chose several political examples. One combines a picture of New Patriotic Party president J. A. Kufuor, winner of Ghana's first democratic election in December of 2000, with slogans in three indigenous languages. Another, dating to 1998, shows Bill Clinton alongside then-leader J. J. Rawlings amid a flurry of repeating national colours.

On Sunday, members of the Lower Mainland's Ghanaian community, plus storyteller Comfort Adesuwa Ero, dancer Kesseke Yeo, and drummers Yoro Noukoussi and Carlos Vallejo, will help launch the show, starting at 2 p.m.