Aiming to transform the perception of African Diaspora sensorial realities during the present national crises, artists search for their ancestral legacies as they shift their locus of enunciation and social preoccupations toward a more inclusive territory.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to control women's bodies overlaps with many communities' risks—political violence, racial injustice, voter suppression. Civil rights gained throughout the 1954-1968 nonviolent social movements and Black Lives Matter public demonstrations are at the brink of disappearance.

Africana Sensorial Superrealities presents works by five global African descendant artists whose creative productions examine diverse ways in which space, color patterns, lines, graphic writing, statehood, textual construction, and ancestral memories are perceived and represented across the diaspora territories.

Weaving Africana-diasporic cultural languages and their undercurrent connectivity, Africana Sensorial Superrealities provides multiple visions in today’s global artistic and sociopolitical discourses.

Akili Ron Anderson (USA) 

Internationally—known Ron Akili Ron Anderson holds a BFA and MFA from Howard University, Washington, DC. Andernson’s artistic and creative abilities include painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, and found objects. He has created magnificent and monumental stained- glass commissions, which include Sankofa (2002), a suite of twenty-two windows installed at Columbia Heights Metro Station, 14th and Irving Streets, Washington, DC. As a member of the  “Nation-African Liberation Arts Ensemble,” Mr. Anderson was chosen to exhibit and perform at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos, Nigeria (1977). Among his solo exhibitions are Akili Ron Anderson: A Fifty Year Retrospective of Black Art and Life (2016) at Hampton University Museum; and Paintings for Projection (1973), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC. As a member of AfriCOBRA collective, Akili Anderson has been included in AfriCOBRA: The Evolution of a Movement (2018), Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, Maryland; and It Takes a Nation: Art for Social Justice (2016), the American University Museum, Washington, DC.

Elka Stevens (USA)

Dr. Elka Stevens holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Stevens's first solo exhibition, 38.8% Visualizing Racial Identity in Search of Selfhood and Others (2022), was presented at Michigan State University. She was commissioned to recreate two garments to accompany Alma W. Thomas: Everything Is Beautiful, a traveling exhibition of paintings by the Howard University’s Department of Art 1924 graduate. Dr. Stevens has also been a 2019-20 fellow of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers—Center American Institute of Indian Studies (CAORC – AIIS); a 2021 Summer Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University fellow; and a 2021-22 Artist-in-Residence: Creative Practice in Critical Race Studies in the Department of Art at Michigan State University. Currently, Dr. Stevens serves as Fashion Design program coordinator and textiles collection curator in Howard University’s Art Department. In March 2023, Elka joined the inaugural Howard University Affiliated Faculty at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, where she researched a new body of work based on global trajectories of Black women artists.

Raimi Gbadamosi (United Kingdom / Nigeria)

Raimi Gbadamosi is an artist, writer, and curator working in music, websites, writing, and audience participation to create debate, instead of representing preconceived concerns defined by specific social, cultural, and political talk. Doctorate in Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, London, England. Recent national and international shows and events include Aardklop, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 2018; Words Festival, NIROX 2017, South Africa; A Romulus, Rebus, Priest Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017; Cemetery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, 2015; Banquet, South Hill Park, Bracknell, United Kingdom, 2011;  Exchange Mechanism, Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Ireland, 2010; ARCO Madrid, Spain 2009; Tentativa de Agotar un Lugar Africano, CASM, Barcelona, Spain 2008; and Human Cargo, Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2007. He is a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group "‘Afroeuropeans’,” University of Leoón, Spain; and the “Black Body” group, Goldsmiths College, London. Gbadamosi is an ambassador of The Republic (http://www.the-republic.net) which negotiates the meeting of language and social constructions.

Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet  (Cuba/USA/Mexico)

Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, Fulbright scholar, and community activist born in Havana, Cuba. Ph.D., Duke University; MFA, University of Iowa. Ferrera-Balanquet’s artworks, installations, videos, and performances have been exhibited at The Future Past vs. Coloniality: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years, SIGGRAPH ASIA, Daegu, South Korea, 2022; Eggungun: Orisha de los Ancestros, The Box Gallery, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, 2019; Ancestral Memories, Jameson Gallery, Duke University, Durham, Carolina de Norte, USA, 2016;  Haceres Decoloniales, Galeria ASAB, Bogota, Colombia, 2015; BE.BOP 2013 Black Europe Body Politics, Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, Germany; DysTorpia Media Project, Queens Art Museum, New York, 2012; Cuba: La Isla Posible, Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, Spain 1995; and The Gulf Crisis TV Project, 1993 Biennial, Whitney Museum of Art, New York. Co-Executive Director of Howard University Gallery of Art, Ferrera-Balanquet has been awarded grants from Critical Minded, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Prince Claus Foundation, the U.S./Mexico Cultural Fund, and The Lyn Blumenthal Video Foundation.

Reginald Pointer (USA)

Reginald Pointer is an educator, ceramic artist, printmaker, illustrator, and wordsmith born in Washington, D.C. MFA, Florida State University; BFA, Howard University. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Art In The Time Of Corona: A Global Project, Vol. 3 (2022), Dab Art Co, Los Angeles-Mexico City – Austin; National Small Works Exhibition, Washington Printmaker Gallery, Washington, DC, 2019; Visual Voices: True Narratives, Society of Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2018; Face 2 Face & In-between, The Blackburn Gallery, Washington, DC, 2006; and Before and After, Dunbar Art Gallery, Grambling State University, Grambling, Louisiana, 2000. Pointer has taught at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, The Clay House, Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Grambling State University, and Penland School of Crafts. Currently, he is the Ceramics Program Coordinator at Howard University’s College of Fine Arts, Washington, DC.

This work was inspired by my ancestors who immigrated to America as children to escape poverty and persecution. My grandfathers were eleven and thirteen when they left their parents and siblings behind to start a new life here, and they worked from the day they arrived. Girls like my great-grandmother were child laborers who toiled in the harrowing conditions of the textile mills. These sculptures depict their hardship, dreams, courage, ideals, fears, love, and loss while they were striving to build new lives for themselves. They portray the emotional turmoil they endured in creating new lives for themselves in pursuit of their dreams.

I tell the story of my ancestors on behalf of all the immigrant children who followed and continue to follow in their footsteps. Our collective story is still ongoing, and we need to be as proud of today’s immigrants and empathize with their struggles as if they were our own ancestral immigrants. There are many inspiring stories of immigration to explore that depict the courage, vulnerability, and ingenuity to survive in this new world, and my hope is continue bringing them to light.

Ellen Hanauer is an international sculptor and installation artist who has spent much of her career depicting the emotive states of the world. She uses mixed media to share her personal history through object-based narratives. Hanauer has dealt with feminist, reproductive, biological, and psychological issues, often portraying the subject matter from the inside out. The inspiration for each piece is derived from its concept, which inspires her to continue evolving techniques and using materials in original ways. Throughout her career, she has continued to integrate social activism into her work.

Hanauer is a self-taught artist who began her career studying the human body in the cadaver labs at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, universities and galleries, including solo exhibitions here and abroad. Her commissions are installed throughout the country and her work is in the collections of museums, corporations, townships, and private collectors.

My practice is a material-based inquiry in search of intersections between craft, art, and design. I use analogue processes and work abstractly, without an explicit narrative. Relying upon intuition, I create enigmatic hybrid objects for contemplation. The work celebrates the pleasures of form, pattern, color, and craft, while emphasizing the handmade as a counterpoint to the chaos of the world around us. I am interested in the way the hand can slow the eye to engage the mind.

In the studio, I explore the alchemy that occurs when various materials and processes are brought together to form an object. My recent wall sculptures are labor-intensive endeavors juxtaposing a range of materials and hand processes. The works are modeled, carved, collaged, stamped, felted, stained, abraded, leafed, and painted. In response to colors and patterns in the fabric, I piece together fragments and build up layers, creating a melting pot of material that is somehow made more beautiful in the process.

Allan Rosenbaum is a studio artist and former Professor of Ceramics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Rosenbaum’s practice is materially based and utilizes a range of analogue processes to investigate intersections between craft, art, and design. Rosenbaum has received Individual Artist Fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts in both Craft and Sculpture, three early-career project grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board, and he is a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Art. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in public collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Taipei Yingge Ceramics Museum; the City Museum of Varazdin, Croatia; Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts;  Madison Art Center in Wisconsin; the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, GA; the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art and the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama; the City of Richmond Public Art Commission; and the Kamm Teapot Foundation.