Adama Delphine Fawundu is a New York-based artist of Mende, Krim, Bamileke, and Bubi descent. Her practice embodies ancestral memory across space and time, reconnecting places, objects, plants, animals, and spirits of the global African diaspora.
The works in this exhibition were made with a process that Fawundu calls “kpoto patchwok,” a combination of the Mende word for gathering fruits and nuts for communal nourishment (kpoto) and the Krio word for piecing together textiles (patchwok). By drawing together materials from Congo, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Malta, Cuba, and the United States, Fawundu stitches together a collective history of the African diaspora that imagines a more interconnected future. Her work is displayed in conversation with objects from the UMFA’s African art collection, which were selected by the artist for their resonance with her practice.
In the true spirit of Fawundu’s cross-continental work, salt 17 is presented concurrently with the artist’s features in the Congo Biennale in Kinshasa and the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil.
This exhibition is accompanied by a publication with a featured essay by Yvonne Mpwo, Independent Curator and bana’pwo Founder.
