Small Matter

media release: December 3, 2025 - March 8, 2026

The galleries will be off view for Legal Holidays on December 24, December 25, December 31, and January 1.   The galleries will be on view during all other regular gallery hours throughout winter break.  Regular gallery hours are listed on our website.

Soccer is the world’s most popular game, but experiences of the game are remarkably different around the world. When children do not have the luxury of affording a mass-produced soccer ball, they take to the streets to make their own balls from cheap, discarded objects. Small Matter exhibits makeshift rag balls made by children in Kano, Nigeria. Rag balls are common in many parts of the world where access to branded balls is limited. Rag balls are made of found materials including, but not limited to: pieces of fabric and string, plastic bags, mosquito nets, fishing nets, used socks, rubber bands, and broken doll’s heads.

Rag balls demonstrate compelling practices of creative reuse and repurposing within street cultures of craft and play. The practice also evidences children’s devotion to the game and their passion and resilience. Playing soccer with a rag ball is a cherished childhood experience. The rag ball is more than a sporting object born out of poverty; it is a cultural artifact with social significance.

Small Matter recognizes the innovative talents of the children who make rag balls, arguing that making is a universal language and a powerful form of expression, especially for underprivileged people, who transform inert matter into vibrant artifacts through creative intervention into the social life of things.

African children creatively craft rag balls from materials found in the local environment, using their voices as agents in their own lives. The rag ball is an important creation that explores the afterlives of material objects at the intersection of sports, play, art, society, and culture.

This exhibit was made possible with generous support from the Anonymous Fund. 

This exhibit was curated by Abubakar Muhammad, Ph.D student in African Cultural Studies, and realized in collaboration with Bo Owen, the Exhibition and Engagement Manager at the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design & Material Culture.