Alumna and Professor Adama Delphine Fawundu '18 Featured in Several Winter Exhibits

By
Audrey Deng
February 28, 2020

Alumna and Professor Adama Delphine Fawundu ’18 is featured in five group exhibits and one solo exhibit this season.

Her solo exhibit, titled Adama Delphine Fawundu: Tingoi is hosted by Granary Arts in Efraim, Utah. The show honors the Mende river goddess, Tingoi. “As the only child in her immediate family born in America, Fawundu’s connection to Sierra Leone is through stories told by her parents. Her Mende father and Krio mother were raised Catholic in the British colony, Sierra Leone,” the gallery writes. The show runs from February 12th to May 2nd.

Dr. Deborah Willis curated the group exhibit Migrations and Meaning(s) in Art at the Meyerhoff Gallery at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The gallery invites artists both local and international to participate in this conversation about migration and the history of migration, including Fawundu. According to the gallery, “Willis selected artwork that considers ‘how identities are realized, rejected, performed and desired,’ as well as the urgency of our present moment, following Nina Simone’s famous statement that artists’ duty is to reflect the times.” This Baltimore-located gallery will close on March 15th.

Penn State University’s HUB-Robeson Galleries has a show titled Still Here: An Exhibition of Eight Films. Curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, Dexter Wimberly and Kiara Ventura, Still Here was originally organized at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco earlier last year. Eight artists, including Fawundu, are featured here. Fawundu’s work is described as “explor[ing] the essence of hair growth and its symbolic significance to her native Mende heritage.” Overall, the works in this exhibition make use of the moving image to​ ​highlight the rituals and traditions that persevere and evolve, despite the oppressive historical ripple effects of colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. According to the website, “[T]he works in this exhibition demonstrate that black and brown bodies are not here for consumption of the white gaze, nor are they passive beings upon whom actions are done or inflicted. Instead, the film’s subjects investigate and enact strategies to deeply connect with parts of their personal and collective narratives that have been overlooked or erased by dominant Eurocentric historical accounts.” The show closes on March 22nd.

Franklin Street Works features Fawundu’s work in another group exhibit in Stamford, CT titled Roots & Roads. According to the gallery, “A group show, Roots & Roads features contemporary art that centers Black hair culture.” Curated by Anita N. Bateman, the show’s title is a play on the words “roots” and “routes,” examining the multiple meanings of each in relation to history and memory. “Black hair has been targeted in every aspect of society: in school, in the workplace, and even within Black culture itself,” Bateman said “As an Afrodiasporic subject, I wanted to think about the social institutions and creative practices concerning hair, facilitating dialogue amongst other Black folks about the idea of ‘rootedness.” The show is currently running, and will close on May 17.

Older woman whispering into the ear of a younger woman kneeling beside her

Radical Revisionist: Contemporary African Artists, a show in the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, is another group exhibit featuring Fawundu’s work. The complete name of this show is Radical Revisionist: Contemporary African Artists: Confronting the Past and Present. This show features works by artists from Africa and the Diaspora who problematize Eurocentric tropes of race, representation and prevailing colonial narratives. According to the gallery, “[...] the selected works, including photography, mixed media, virtual reality, sculpture, and a site-specific installation, speak to the ways in which outside interventions have deeply affected both the people and the landscape.” The show will close on May 16.

In Braunschweig, Germany, The Faculty of Sensing: Thinking With, Through, and By Anton Wilhelm Amo is a group exhibit bringing together sixteen artists from around the world. The exhibit is organized around Amo (1700-1750), who was the first African to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at a European university. This exhibit opens on March 28 and closes on August 2 at the Kunstverein Braunschweig.

Fawundu received her MFA from Columbia University. She is the co-author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. Recent awards and residencies include the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award, The New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Fellowship and the BRIC Artist Workspace Residency. Her most recents solo shows include The Sacred Star of Isis & Other Stories at The African American Museum in Philadelphia and Crush Curatorial, NYC. She is currently an artist in residence at The Center for Book Arts in NYC.

Two women standing in front of textile
Person seated on bench