KINDRED

CURATION, EXHIBITION DESIGN

Kindred was an art exhibition that I co-curated with Tia Blassingame. Kindred presents a selection of art and design work from artists who identify as being of African descent. The assembled graduate, undergraduate, and alumni students are among the 83 students on the RISD campus (during the 2014-2015 academic year) who share this African ancestry. The artists featured in the show demonstrate a cross section of ethnic affiliations which include Black, African-American, African American-European,Haitian, Trinidadian-Puerto Rican,Jamaican-Japanese, Caribbean-Filipino, Guinean-American, Nigerian-American, and Swedish-Ugandan. The students work in and outside their formal disciplines to highlight the complexities of race, identity politics,gender stereotypes, homosexuality, religious freedom, Afro-futurism and the connections between nature, physical objects and the human condition.