Hand-stitched sculptures: Dickens tracks the paths of creatures large and small

Long before he had ever heard of the Nigeria-based Ghanaian-born artist El Anatsui, Dickens Otieno was busy flattening metal bottle tops and making them into hand-stitched sculptures.

Even so, Dickens’ sculptures were qualitatively different from those of the acclaimed West African artist. He didn’t simply stitch his bottle tops together to create flattened tapestries. He cut his bottle tops and metal tins of Kimbo and Tusker beer into metallic threads that he wove into new fabrics, which he used to create his metallic fashions.