African Women in African Arts: Activists, Cultural Brokers, and Boundary Breakers

Abstract

New African Diaspora Women Artists (NADWA), are artists of African origin now located in other parts of the world notably Euro-American spaces. They are a cluster of women with increasing gravitas in contemporary art circles. Their works explore a variety of media ranging from large scale forms to minimalist representations. In these works, they address a myriad of issues including existential conditions, human rights, women’s rights, environmental crises, racial and political concerns, pop culture, sexuality, and identity issues. Furthermore, critical inclinations – the personal and the political are juxtaposed, and occupy the epicenter of the artists’ musings. As a collective, the NADWA could be defined as characteristically hybrid, transnational, ‘glo-cal’ (local and global) and radical in their visual language, and innovative in their materiality. They straddle and break boundaries. Six of such artists are discussed here: Sokari Douglas-Camp, Laila Essaydi, Wangechi Mutu, Madeline Odundo, Njideka Akunyili-Crosby and Lina Iris Viktor. Their works offer instructive windows through which one glimpses their individual, ideological and thematic concerns, and their episodic and critical conversations with African homelands and African diaspora locations. The dialogues between Africa and the global space, the push back against dominant hegemonies, ideas about old and new identities are also featured in some of their works.