Africa In Context: San Diego Mesa College World Art Permanent Collection From January 30 – February 23, 2023
The art gallery at San Diego Mesa College is honoring Black history with a brand-new display of traditional African artwork. Africa in Context, a thoughtfully curated exhibition by Dr. Denise Rogers, showcases historically significant and visually spectacular pieces from the San Diego Mesa College World Art Permanent Collection. Artists from a variety of African nations and cultural groups, including Ghana, Mali, Yoruba, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be represented in the exhibition. These pieces’ broadly applicable themes include those of feminine power, ancestry, healing, and mourning. In the vast gallery space, the San Diego Mesa College art gallery team has produced dynamic, multi-media recreated environments that replicate the ritual and cultural background with the assistance of student assistants, Museum Studies program graduates, and local artists.
Bamana dancers embody the magical qualities of their ancestor spirit, Ci (Chi) Wara, dressed in clothing made of raffia skirts and carved masks featuring antelopes, in the gallery space, where Kuba royal cloths woven with geometric patterns are on display hanging on the wall of a communal structure made of bamboo branches and palm fronds. Additionally, an elaborate altar built on a faux-rock wall incorporates a variety of fertility figures from the Ashanti culture and offerings of cowrie shells, seeds and beads; elegant figures attired in colorful patterned clothing are crowned with spirit masks from the Igbo people. As one enters, a row of memorial posts from the Giriama people guard the space. Rather than sitting still the objects populate the space imbuing it with mystery and they transport the viewer to another time and place. African artworks are more than just artifacts; their meaning comes from their connections to their cultures, and their purpose is intertwined with the everyday lives of people across the African continent, and this is what comes across in this installation.
ABC10 News Reporter Moses Small met the exhibit’s curator and learned how masks and statues illustrate Africa’s rich heritage.
“Every time you see a mask, you can trace everyone’s lineage back to the motherland,” said Dr. Denise Rogers, Professor of Fine Arts History at San Diego Mesa College.
“The exhibit features pieces from the Mesa College permanent collection. The collection has been a part of the campus for about 40 years,” said Dr. Rogers. “Donors started contributing to this collection. At this point we have close to 1,300 pieces in the collection.”
The works showcases are masks with complete outfits, some over 6 feet tall. Aside from this, visitors can see numerous shrines nearby.
“We have these amazing masks, and fibers and so on. But they’re very static, and sometimes they’re on pedestals. That’s not how they were meant to be seen. I wanted people to see them closer to the true context of how they were meant to be seen,” said Rogers. “Pieces like the masks in the center, they’re performative. They needed their own space. Because when you think of African masks, you have to say masquerade.”
According to Moses, each piece tells a story about Africa’s rich heritage.
“You trace the history of humanity; you go to Africa. It’s everyone’s history,” said Rogers. “Everyone is embedded in the pieces in this collection.”
