Woven Journey celebrates Janet Goldner’s enduring artistic bond with West Africa, particularly Mali. Through photographs and text, the installation commemorates her first trip to the region 50 years ago and her ongoing creative exploration and cultural engagement.

The immersive installation encapsulating the artist’s continued commitment to Mali, combining evocative photographs amassed over years and poignant excerpts from personal journals. Beginning in 1973 with a three-month sojourn in Ghana as part of a study abroad program, Goldner’s journey led her through West Africa, with Mali being the heart of her time there. Facilitated by a prestigious Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, in 1995, Goldner returned to Mali, where she forged a deep connection with local potters, metalsmiths, and contemporary artists. Since then, several months out of almost every year the artist travels back, where she continues the dialogue with Malian artists about their lives, work, and creative process, nurturing profound friendships, and fostering collaborative artistic connections.

Goldner elaborates, “Working transculturally unites people from different cultures, education, histories. The exchange of perspectives and contexts can highlight global similarities and specific cultural differences as contributors think together, contributing beliefs and strategies from their individual experiences. As the work continues over a long period of time, the result can be an identity that is not exclusively linked to a geographic location or ethnicity but to new cultural and conceptual realms.”