Complex Issues: Adama Delphine Fawundu: In the Spirit of Àṣẹ
Artist and faculty member Adama Delphine Fawundu '18 discusses her solo exhibition spanning video, sculpture, photography, and printmaking with art historian Kellie Jones. The exhibition is now at the Newark Museum of Art.
About Adama Delphine Fawundu: In the Spirit of Àṣẹ:
“This exhibition presents new artworks created by Adama Delphine Fawundu with the [Newark] Museum’s far-reaching Arts of Global Africa collection as a touchstone for her artistic explorations.
Choosing Sierra Leonean modernist Olayinka Miranda Burney-Nicol (1927–1996) as her entry, Fawundu approached the collection as a repository of insightful and interconnected energies rather than African objects. Further drawn to collection examples that embody Yorùbá philosophy, Mende aesthetics, and connections between art, nature, and spirituality, she created ‘new beings.’ For Fawundu, everything is intertwined and alive with ‘performative power’ known as àṣẹ — the vital force the Yorùbá recognize as the source of all existence, including art and artists.”
Adama Delphine Fawundu: In the Spirit of Àṣẹ features large-scale screenprints that were produced at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies. Click here to view the prints.
Co-presented by the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department; the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race; the Department of Africana Studies, Barnard College; the Institute of African Studies; the Institute for Research in African-American Studies; the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies; the Newark Museum of Art; the School of the Arts Visual Arts Program; and Shine Portrait Studio/Express Newark.