Professor Adama Delphine Fawundu Honors Ancestors in New Installation
Director of Visual Arts Graduate Studies and Assistant Professor Adama Delphine Fawundu ’18 has debuted a new large-scale, site-specific installation titled Ancestral Whispers at Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park. The installation is part of Fawundu's role as the inaugural Artist in Residence for the Prospect Park Alliance's ReImagine Lefferts initiative.
Ancestral Whispers features 25 fabric banners that transform the house's Flatbush Avenue facade, honoring the heroism of 25 individuals who were enslaved at the house between its construction in 1783 and the abolition of slavery in New York in 1827. In addition, Fawundu's video performance piece In the Face of History Freedom Cape (2020), partially filmed in Prospect Park and Lefferts Historic House, is on view inside the museum.
This new installation builds on Fawundu's ongoing collaborations with Prospect Park, which also include the 2021 Joyful Blues installation at the Lena Horne Bandshell. The exterior installation of Ancestral Whispers is viewable daily at Lefferts Historic House, while the interior installation can be viewed during open hours from 12 to 4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays through December 1.
For Fawundu, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, the project holds deep personal significance. In an interview with Observer, she stated the project “means more to me than I can put into words. At the opening, I saw friends who had known me since I was five, as well as community members along with people from the art world, and I am delighted when art can attract a truly diverse audience."
The ReImagine Lefferts initiative, launched in 2021 and funded by a Mellon Foundation grant, aims to reframe the museum's mission to focus on exploring the lives, resistance, and resilience of the Indigenous Lenape people and the Africans enslaved by the Lefferts family. Fawundu's installation seeks to connect the collective past with issues affecting communities today.
Fawundu is known for her multimedia works exploring themes of indigenization and ancestral memory. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Bamako Encounters Photography Biennial in Mali. In 2017, she co-founded MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. Fawundu has received numerous awards, including a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship.