Artist talk by Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow (SARF) Ayana V. Jackson. Wednesday, September 19 at 12pm

National Museum of African Art
Lecture Hall
12 pm

Jackson has been collecting and researching reference materials that will assist in her construction and visualization for a forthcoming series. At the foundation of this series lies the myth of Drexciya, an idea created by a Detroit based electronica band of the same name. According to these early afro-futurists this colony, rooted on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, is populated by the descendants of children birthed from women thrown overboard transatlantic slave ships.

She has been researching the collections at the National Museum of African Art, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Cooper Hewitt, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum for African American History and Culture. Using these collections, she has studied water spirit mythology and iconography, African and African American modes of adornment, 17th century Western European and American dress trends, modes of portraiture, and the for oral performance and transcripts referencing/imagining the transatlantic voyage.

Jackson will provide background to her artistic practice, share her research methods, and how that research will be used as reference for a forthcoming portraiture and performance series.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! FIRST COME FIRST SEATED.