iCandy x Muffin Sisters: Connecting Across Generations with Children's Art Week

Muffin Sisters is our dream. It was born from a passion for using traditional African fabrics merged with European modern style to create children products. So it all started back in 2014, after the inspiring journey to Mali. We were born and raised in Poland and currently live in London, UK. Our upbringing allowed us to come to know Polish culture, traditions, and history, although the visit to Mali gave us the chance to learn and understand Malian cultural heritage. After that event, we realized how important it was for us to reconnect with our ancestral roots. The first product we made was a baby blanket at the end of 2015 and then we started to create more children’s accessories and nursery décor.

Our ethos is ”Preserve heritage, cherish tradition, be inspired by diversity. Let’s cultivate African culture!” Muffin Sisters was created with the simple aim to ease practising African culture and maintaining heritage by creating colourful children’s accessories for the next generation. We want to bring joy, happiness, and inspiration to babies and families by providing them with unique products inspired by Africa.

Since we grew up in Poland, exploring African culture was not so easy but our father and his friends have taught us about important family values. We were always thrilled when we received handmade traditional jewellery or accessories made of African fabrics. As we got older, we wanted to learn more about the rituals, events, architecture, music and textiles from available sources at the time.

The journey to Mali was really important and a great occasion for us to meet our extended family. Throughout our 3 week journey, we had the chance to find our origins and comprehend the African means of life.

We also had the opportunity to attend the Boubakar Dombia and Ndomo Textile Workshop which is located in Ségou, the city where our father was born. He hires young employees and staff from the city and trains them to create beautiful pieces of art. They are making a unique and high-quality fabric called Bògòlanfini or Bogolan. It’s made of plain woven narrow strips hand sewn together and decorated with geometric patterns using fermented mud. The patterns include symbols which provide a coded message as a unique form of storytelling. We also found out that within African culture, there is often a hidden meaning behind clothes and we were more impressed that different types of clothes are a way of communicating with others.

We were surrounded by art from a young age in different forms. Firstly, our family house was filled with traditional wall art, for example, wooden African masks and cloth wall hangings.

On the other side, we could easily learn about Polish history in school and by visiting museums and going to theatres and opera.

We were creating DIY toys and crafts together with our Grandfather who was spending a lot of time with us. He also was singing and playing on the guitar and that inspired us to want to play instruments together for family celebration events. This helped us to develop some of our creative art skills and gave us more possibilities.

We were growing up in Bydgoszcz, a lovely city in northern Poland and the eighth prime city in the country. The population was not ethnically diverse and its completely different to London which is one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

While we were able to learn about Polish heritage and history, unfortunately, we didn’t have so many opportunities to connect with Malian heritage. Nevertheless, we tried to connect with people that had similar backgrounds and experiences to ours. We always appreciated spending time together and sharing and learning about each other.

Times are very fast-changing and now we have wide access to resources which can help to empower children to explore their potential on a journey of self-discovery. There are many books, workshops and community events which are helping children to raise their self-esteem and confidence.

If we want children to find out who they are, and who they want to be we should help them to reconnect with their past in a way that can shape their future. We believe that understanding where they came from, their roots, and family history will guide their future.

We have recently shared recommendations received from parents about diverse books. The blog post titled Teaching Children Through Books To Value One Another And Celebrate Diversity highlights the importance of teaching our young ones how to value each other and understand the concept of diversity. To help your children understand this in a fun way, we have put together a selection of 15 recommended books.

We believe that parents can start teaching children from the very beginning of their lives – there are so many topics explaining how unique we all are. Educating about ethnicity, languages,  gender, race, religious beliefs can be through reading stories that showcase similarities and differences and from there start a conversation and children might be even more curious about the topic. For example, parents and children could come up with themed events where children can learn about different cultures, traditions and history of different countries. The perfect way to do it is celebrating this at home throughout a weekend.

We don’t have a favourite space as we love exploring different places every time our family visits, so we always choose a new gallery or museum. We enjoy long walks around the city and watching street performances especially in Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square or Southbank and of course enjoy the amazing views and atmosphere.

We are planning to expand our product range and try to educate about African culture as well as folklore, music, textiles and languages. We aim to instil the love for the culture and traditions by preserving and maintaining from day one.