salt 17: Adama Delphine Fawundu

Fawundu's 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.