Please join us for an evening of conversation about contemporary African Diaspora photography on view in our current exhibitions Africa State of Mind and The Sacred Star of Isis and Other Stories: Photography by Adama Delphine Fawundu. Africa State of Mind curator Ekow Eshun and artist Delphine Adama Fawundu will be in conversation with UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus and photographer Lewis Watts.

‍This program will include a wine reception.

‍Ekow Eshun (born London, 1968) is a writer, broadcaster and curator. He is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, overseeing London’s public art programme in Trafalgar Square, and Creative Director of the Calvert 22 Foundation, a leading arts space dedicated to the contemporary culture of Eastern Europe. He was the Director of the ICA, London, from 2005–2010.

Eshun’s writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, Granta, Vogue, New Statesman and Wired. He is the author of Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa, nominated for the Orwell prize, and the editor of Africa Modern: Creating the Contemporary Art of a Continent. He appears on BBC Radio 4 shows Saturday Review and Front Row and has been a regular contributor to BBC 2’s Newsnight Review.

‍Adama Delphine Fawundu is a visual artist, author and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the co-founder of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. Her extensive exhibition record includes the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Steve Kasher Gallery, Pulse Art Fair, the Lagos Photo Festival, The Brighton Photo Biennial (UK), Norton Museum of Art, Villa La Pietra (Italy), and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago).

Fawundu’s works can also be found in the private and public collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Historical Society, The Norton Museum of Art, Corridor Art Gallery, The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, and The Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In recognition of her artistic practice, Fawundu was nominated for and won the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award and named one of OkayAfrica’s ‘100 Women making an impact on Africa and its Diaspora.’ She was also included in the Royal Photographic Society’s (UK) ‘Hundred Heroines.’ Fawundu received her MFA from Columbia University.

featured image, left: Girma Berta, Moving Shadows II, IV, 2017. Courtesy of the Artist & Addis Fine Art.featured image, right: Adama Delphine Fawundu, PassageWays #3 , Traditions, Spoken and Unspoken, 2017. Photograph. Courtesy of the artist.