Wilma Legault
Class of 2024Maretz, Nord
About
Hello, my name is Wilma, nice to meet you! I’m a student in graphic design who loves history and anything digitally artsy. I often describe myself as someone who’s ticklish to curiosity. I do a lot of video work, but I love design. My work explores the intersection of tradition, digital creativity, and even everyday life—I’m fascinated by what makes humankind, well, humankind. My project talks about the history of African black soap and how it started as a small tradition of African knowledge and traveled across Africa to become a global sensation. I retrace the economical aspects, the different recipes used along the way, the reasons for the ingredients alongside their medicinal purposes and cosmetic intentions, as well as some traditional African skincare practices and many other goodies you should check out—if you’re curious. I did this project because education is something important to me, and I wanted to bridge a gap in African digital humanities and also highlight narratives and stories that aren’t talked about enough or are underrepresented. Also… because I’m a soap geek. After this project, I would like to study art direction at a design school.Projects
- From Ritual to Retail: Trajectories of Black Soap from Africa to the world. with mentor Kristen (Aug. 20, 2025)
Project Portfolio
From Ritual to Retail: Trajectories of Black Soap from Africa to the world.
Started Dec. 20, 2024
Abstract or project description
What if Soap Had a Passport?
Black soap, rooted in local rituals and traditional medicine, has traveled through migration, trade, and digital networks, evolving from a local product to a global cosmetic. This movement changes the soap, the ways it’s used, and the identities of those who make and use it.
This project explores how black soap has evolved across the African diaspora and beyond, showcasing its adaptation through ever-shifting soap-making techniques over time, and how these variations reflect deeper cultural, medicinal, economic, and societal meanings.
Created as an interactive website, the project draws from travel writing, chemical studies, and personal experimentation with black soap. Through digital storytelling and visual documentation, it traces how black soap travels with its makers—transforming both its recipe and its meaning along the way.
Ultimately, this project invites us to reconsider the mundane. It shows how everyday objects like soap can carry histories of sustainability, memory, and heritage—and opens new conversations around consumption, tradition, and self-care in postcolonial Africa and beyond.