Peace Warriors for the Arts (PWFA) offers teens enrolled in the Clubhouse Network a unique opportunity to research a topic and create a platform for global understanding through an African lens. The Clubhouse Network is an international community of organizations that provide learning environments in which teens working with mentors explore ideas of their choosing and imagination, develop new skills, and build confidence using technology.
Using resources from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the exhibition Heroes: Principles of African Greatness, teens select from the suggestions below or create a project they would like to work on. Focus areas include: STEAM, Media Literacy, Visual Arts, Contemporary Studies, Social Studies, Language Arts, World Geography, African Studies, Art History. All students who complete one major project will receive a certificate of completion from the National Museum of African Art.
To participate in Peace Warriors for the Arts, join the Clubhouse in your community (locations available on Clubhouse webpage). For more information about the program, contact Pier Penic at PenicP@si.edu.
Select from one of the options below, or create your own project!
Peace Warriors for the Arts . . .
represent Liberty
This work rises in the center of Heroes as the museum’s own Statue of Liberty.
1935–2016, b. Dakar, Senegal; worked in Dakar
Toussaint Louverture et la vielle esclave [Toussaint Louverture and the elderly enslaved woman]1989
Mixed media (iron, earth, jute, straw, other organic materials)
220 × 100 × 110 cm (86 5/8 × 39 3/8 × 43 5/16 in.)
Museum purchase, through exchange from Emil Eisenberg, and Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, and with funds from Stuart Bohart and Barbara Portman, 2009-8-1
are Woke
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”—Steve Biko
b. 1956, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Works in Kuils River, Western Cape Province, South Africa
The Notorious Green Car
1995
Metal, paint, burlap, glass, plexiglass, bone, plastic, cloth, wood, rubber, paper, wire
175 × 100 × 21 cm (68 7/8 ×39 3/8 × 8 1/4 in.)
Museum purchase, 96-26-1
are Benevolent
The embodiment of generosity.
Montagnes District, Côte d’Ivoire
Wa ke mia (ceremonial spoon)
Early to mid-20th century
Wood, metal, oil
62.5 × 16.5 × 8.5 cm (24 5/8 × 6 1/2 × 3 3/8 in.)
Gift of Walt Disney World Co., a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, 2005-6-58
are Empowered
A monument to women who dared to claim their own power.
b. 1963, Cairo, Egypt
Works in New York
The Blue Bra Girls
2012
Cast and polished stainless steel
182.9 × 157.5 × 137.2 cm (72 × 62 × 54 in.)
Museum purchase, Women’s Initiative Fund, 2018-2-1
