Adama Delphine Fawundu is a New York-based artist of Mende, Krim, Bamileke, and Bubi descent. Her practice embodies ancestral memory across space and time, reconnecting places, objects, plants, animals, and spirits of the global African diaspora.
The works in this exhibition were made with a process that Fawundu calls “kpoto patchwok,” a combination of the Mende word for gathering fruits and nuts for communal nourishment (kpoto) and the Krio word for piecing together textiles (patchwok). By drawing together materials from Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Brazil, Nigeria, and Utah, Fawundu stitches together a collective history of the African diaspora that imagines a more interconnected future. Her work is displayed in conversation with objects from the UMFA’s African Art collection, which were selected by the artist for their resonance with her practice.
In the true spirit of Fawundu’s cross-continental work, salt 17 is presented concurrently with the artist’s features in the Congo Biennale in Kinshasa and the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil.
This exhibition is accompanied by a publication with a featured essay by Yvonne Mpwo, Independent Curator and bana’pwo Founder.
About the Artist
Adama Delphine Fawundu
Adama Delphine Fawundu is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY of Mende, Bubi, Krim ancestry. Her work explores themes such as indigenisation, ancestral memory and activating the radical imagination. She co-authored the book MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Catchlight Fellowship, Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant. Select permanent collections include the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Princeton University Museum, Bryn Mawr College, Norton Museum of Art, and the David C. Driskell Art Collection. She is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University.
salt 17 Featured Writer
Yvonne Mpwo
Yvonne Mpwo is a Congolese-American curator based in New York. Yvonne’s work centers on producing exhibitions in partnership with creative technologists to explore reclamation, indigeneity, and sovereignty across virtual and physical realms. As the founder of bana’pwo, a cross-cultural artist residency, Yvonne creates opportunities for artists, researchers, and architects worldwide to engage with the rich cultural landscape of the Congo. In her role as Program Director for the 2025 Congo Biennale in Kinshasa, Yvonne is organizing programs that deepen the Biennale’s engagement with local and global audiences, focusing on sustainable community impact, cultural memory, and spatial storytelling. She is currently pursuing an M.S in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP).
Watch artist Adama Delphine Fawundu talk about her experimental printmaking techniques.
Artwork Credit: Image Credit: Adama Delphine Fawundum, American, born 1971, Simba #1: feet grounded in the earth's deep core, head crouned by a galaxy of stars–she sees: you are me, I am you, we are countless, yet one, 2025, Archival pigment, cyanotypes, acrylic paint, kalaba (kaolin), and mabele chalk on cotton canvas. Antique quilt from Salt Lake City. Handmade banana leaf with jute pulp paper. Healing herbs, Kuba cloth, and raffia from Congo, Brazil, and Sierra Leone. Copper from Ghana. Salt from the Great Salt Lake. Cobalt blue glass bottles, palm fibers, and calabash from Congo and Brazil. Clay beads from Bahia. Cowrie shells from Brazil, Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone Turkey and pheasant feathers. Elements of water, wind, and sunshine from Kinshasa, Congo; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Salt Lake City, Utah; Bahia, Brazil; and Lagos, Nigeria, Courtesy of the artist.
Curatorial Sponsor:
Erica and Ben Dahl
Installation Sponsor:
Funded in part by:
The Joseph and Evelyn Rosenblatt Enrichment Fund