ADAMA DELPHINE FAWUNDU / Tingoi
Curated by J. Sybylla Smith

February 12 – May 2, 2020

“i found god in myself and i loved her i loved her fiercely”
– Ntozake Shange

West African deities shape-shift, defy time and elude human form. Embodied through art forms including dance, music, painting and sculpture their powers are transmitted by stories. 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.

Header image: Aligned with Sodpet, Adama Delphine Fawundu

In their stories of everyday life, she heard mystical stories of medicine men, Bondo Nomoli’s (masked beings), and Mami Wata – an omnipotent yet elusive water goddess. Fawundu’s memories inform her latest work where she manifests conversations between multiple African deities and the forceful extraction of her people due to slavery. These photo-based multi-media works honor the Mende river goddess, Tingoi, the quintessence of beauty. Tingoi expands human imagination to hold all the beauty the world contains. Fawundu understands deities travel through space and time to inhabit a true world beyond human access. She creates various iterations of these beings as they interfere, intersect and confront current and past social and cultural realities. Natural elements including hair, textiles and cowrie shells are integral and powerful conduits in her work. Masks, a form of self-preservation throughout the violent histories of Colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, are prevalent in her practice. Fawundu unfolds the layers of the stories she knows to create new ones. She reimagines, reenacts and recreates Afro futurist identities representing a new narrative, and honoring the complex history of the African Diaspora.

About the Artist

Adama Delphine Fawundu is photographer and visual artist born in Brooklyn, NY to parents from Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. She received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts. Her art explores the strength of African and Black diaspora culture and identities that continue to evolve despite the social violence of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. Fawundu is a co-founder and author of the book and movement, MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. She is currently an artist-in-resident at the Center for Book Arts in NYC. Her awards include the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Grant, and the Brooklyn Arts Council Grant. Fawundu’s works can be found in private and public collections such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Historical Society, The Norton Museum of Art, Corridor Art Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and David C. Driskell Center, For the Study of Visual Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, University of Maryland. delphinefawundu.com

About the Curator

J. Sybylla Smith is an independent curator, educator and consultant who has featured over 110 international artists in 27 solo or group exhibitions in the past 8 years. Her exhibits have been held in various traditional and non-traditional settings including a free-standing Boston-based gallery, a satellite gallery with the Griffin Museum of Photography and Digital Silver Imaging, Harvard University Ed Portal and Photoville in Brooklyn, NY. Two exhibits traveled to South America and Mexico. Smith created and teaches a concept development curriculum, Concept Aware®. A framework is introduced utilizing contemporary photography as illustration of 8 essential elements of creative practice. Pending publication, she teaches workshops nationally. As guest editor, author and book reviewer she has published articles on photography, contemporary art and gender parity in the arts. As an adjunct professor, guest lecturer and thesis advisor she has worked with The School of Visual Arts NYC, Harvard University, Wellesley University, Emerson College, Tufts Museum School of the Fine Arts and Emmanuel College. As a visiting lecturer Smith presents on Women in the Arts, Gender Parity and Creative Practice. She consults with individual artists, arts organizations and educational institutions to develop exhibitions and educational programming. www.jsybyllasmith.com