News Release – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 19, 2025

Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) Awarded $350,000 Grant to Strengthen Organizational Capacity, Sustainability, and Global Collaboration

The Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) has received a $350,000 General Operating Support grant from the Mellon Foundation, marking a transformative investment in the organization’s continued growth, capacity building, and leadership in advancing scholarship, ethical museum practices, and artistic exchange in African art studies.

As the only professional organization based in the United States dedicated to the study of African arts, ACASA has, for more than four decades, supported scholars, artists, curators, and museum professionals across the world. This new three-year award builds on ACASA’s prior Mellon-funded capacity-building initiatives (2022–2025), ensuring sustained administrative and strategic development while expanding global engagement and fostering ethical stewardship of African art collections.

Grant-Supported Initiatives

The Mellon Foundation’s support will enable ACASA to:

• Sustain key administrative leadership by continuing the role of an Arts Administrator/Project Manager to oversee strategic planning, governance, and event delivery.
• Host the 20th Triennial Symposium on African Art in Rabat, Morocco (July 2027) in collaboration with Université Mohammed V, expanding ACASA’s global footprint and fostering cross-continental dialogue.
• Launch a Provenance Research Training Workshop Program in partnership with leading museums to strengthen ethical research capacity and transparency.
• Partner with Matrix at MSU to support the “Making United States African Art Collections Accessible and Visible” (MUSAA) digital initiative — an aggregator connecting users, especially those based in Africa, with data on African artworks in U.S. collections.
• Create a long-term sustainability plan in partnership with nonprofit consultants to diversify funding streams and ensure ACASA’s financial independence.

These initiatives align with the Mellon Foundation’s commitment to supporting historically under-resourced organizations and advancing new models that reflect a holistic approach to social and cultural change.

Please direct inquiries to ACASA President Amanda M. Maples at president@acasaonline.org.

About the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA)

The Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) is the leading U.S.-based professional organization dedicated solely to the study and promotion of African and African Diaspora arts. Founded in 1981, ACASA’s mission is to foster greater understanding of African material and expressive culture in all its myriad forms and to encourage ongoing collaboration among artists, scholars, curators, museum professionals, students, and global communities. Through its core initiatives—including the Triennial Symposium on African Art, awards for teaching, curatorial and publication excellence, webinars, museum- and artist-centric resources, and its Collaboration, Collections, and Restitution Best Practices for North American Museums Holding African Objects (CCRBP) document—ACASA creates dynamic forums for exchange, supports the ethical stewardship and visibility of African art, and advances equity, access, and dialogue in the field. For more information about the organization, its activities, and its global membership, visit www.acasaonline.org.

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The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is now accepting applications for senior, visiting senior, and postdoctoral fellowships that begin in 2026. These residential appointments support research in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts and related disciplines of any period or geographical area.

Learn more about each opportunity, their requirements, and their deadlines here: https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/fellowships.html

See Candidate’s Full Statements and Access Voting Portal

Voting for new members of the Board of Directors is open through 19 August 2025. ACASA members in good standing (with active memberships) are eligible to vote. Election results will be communicated via membership email.

Five elected candidates will serve for an approximately 3-year term as Members-at-Large (ending ASA 2028). The current board will appoint a President–Elect/VP from the elected candidates (to be ratified electronically by the membership) who will succeed Amanda M. Maples as President at the end of her term of office (Triennial 2027). For more information regarding the structure and duties of the board, please consult the by-laws.

Position Description:
Members-at-large are full members of the ACASA Board of Directors. Duties include: attending meetings and participating in board deliberations; serving on committees as needed; and fulfilling vacant board member roles or other duties as assigned.
Empty board positions looking to be filled include Vice President/President-Elect, Treasurer-Elect, Website Editor, and two Members-At-Large.

ACASA Board Candidates 2025–2028:

• Olayemi Tosin Ajayi
• Olaoluwa Ayokunmi
• Delinda Collier
• Paul Cooper
• Alice Korkor Ebeheakey
• Aindrea Emelife
• Blaise Gundu Gbaden
• Kiagho Kilonzo
• Gontse Mathabathe
• Ashley V. Miller
• Olusegun Quadri

You can find the candidates’ statements, CVs, and the link to the voting portal here: https://www.acasaonline.org/2025-board-election/

All nominations due July 21, 2025

The ACASA Board of Directors is looking to fill five open board positions for the ASA 2025-2027 Term:

1. Vice President/President-Elect
2. Treasurer-Elect
3. Website Editor
4. Member at Large
5. Member at Large

All nominees must be members in good standing of ACASA (must have an active membership). In addition to their assigned position, each Board member serves on committees during their 3-year term and participates in regular board meetings. Please note that nominees do not apply to a specific board position, but encourage nominees to include their preferred positions in their statement of intent. Following the general election, the Board will hold an internal election to designate one new member as Vice President/Future President, as indicated in the bylaws, and assign the remaining board positions accordingly. All elected nominees must be willing and ready to serve as ACASA Vice President/President-Elect.

All nominations are due July 21, 2025. Submit your nominations through the link below.

Nomination Form

The ACASA Board Elections Committee will contact nominees by email. Nominees who accept their nomination must submit a short bio, short statement of intent including interested position(s), and a 4-page (max) CV by 4 August 2025.

Members may nominate another ACASA member or themself for one of these positions.

If you have any questions, please email Caroline Bastian Retcher, ACASA Admin, at bastian@acasaonline.org

Almas Art Foundation (AAF)  is a London based non-profit organisation that is committed to celebrating the invaluable contributions made by African and African diaspora artists to modern and contemporary visual arts.

Almas aims to present and create an awareness for the practices of established and mid-career African and African diaspora artists through a programme of publications, exhibitions and films, documenting these artists’ practices for a new generation of African artists, scholars and the wider international art community.

Almas aims to foster collaborations with emerging artists, curators and writers to support the arts ecosystem in Africa and facilitate residencies through partnerships with universities, institutions and independent initiatives.

WEBSITE   https://www.almasartfoundation.org/

INSTAGRAM @almasartfoundationuk

FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/almasartfoundationukorg/

Almas Publication Catalogue_250707_205601

The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) is pleased to announce that the 2026 ACIP Workshop will be Revisiting and Reimagining “Imvo Zabantsundu”. The project was proposed by organisers Athambile Masola (Historical Studies), Litheko Modisane (Film and Media Studies), Sanele kaNtshingana (African Languages), and Wanga Gambushe (African Languages) at University of Cape Town and Sisanda Nkoala (Linguistics) of University of the Western Cape. Revisiting and Reimagining “Imvo Zabantsundu” will take place in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2026.

Revisiting and Reimagining Imvo Zabantsundu 

Revisiting and Reimagining “Imvo Zabantsundu” will be a two day immersion workshop delving into the newspaper Imvo Zabantsundu, the first Black-owned newspaper
in South Africa. Established in 1884 by John Tengo Jabavu (1859-1921), this newspaper not only laid the foundation for Black journalism but also generated a print culture that was challenging the colonial print culture that was emerging in the region. The newspaper has become a cultural artefact many refer to as a pioneering moment but few have engaged with it as a historical, cultural, and political artefact worth revisiting as a living and breathing archive. This workshop will bring together academics, students, journalists, and creatives to reinvigorate the newspaper towards a longer project which will culminate in a book that will revisit Imvo through scholarly and creative responses. This workshop will include collective close reading of the newspaper (those available), analyses of changes in the language
used over time, as well as a film screening which situates the newspaper within a broader
intellectual tradition of the world of letters in the southern African region.
In a context where English dominates public culture, it has become harder to imagine that South Africa once had a rich culture of multilingual newspapers such as Imvo as well as other newspapers that came later, such as llanga lase Natali, The Bantu World, and Koranta ea Becoana.
This workshop aims to challenge this narrowing of public culture by taking seriously the
newspaper as a cultural artefact which can reinvigorate contemporary public culture.

Founded in 2012, the African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) is a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at University of the Western Cape in Cape Town and the Laney Graduate School of Emory University in Atlanta. Supported by donations to the Ivan Karp and Corinne Kratz Fund, the ACIP fosters thinking and working across public cultural institutions, across disciplines and fields, and across generations. It seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions, and public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa through an annual ACIP workshop and through the Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards, which support African doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences enrolled at South African universities.

Information about applying to organize the 2027 ACIP workshop and for the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards will be available in November 2025.

The deadline for both workshop applications and student applications is 1 May 2026.

For further information, see http://www.gs.emory.edu/about/special/acip.html and
https://www.facebook.com/ivan.karp.corinne.kratz.fund.

Beyond the “Mask:” Towards a New Paradigm of Collecting and Displaying African Art in U.S. Museums

Wednesday, May 14th, from 12:00 PM -1:30 PM CST | 10AM PST | 1 PM EST | 6 PM WAT/BST | 7 PM SAST/CEST | 8 PM EAT/EEST

A pair of Kimi masks (headpiece carved by David Sanou in the studio of André Sanou) performing greetings with the lead griot Tchiedo playing his drum behind them, Bindougosso district, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkino Faso. Photo by Lisa Homann on May 3, 2022.

Join us on Wednesday, May 14, for a thought-provoking webinar discussion that examines how museums can reshape their approaches to collecting and displaying African art through ethical transparency, inclusive narratives, and critical practices. Inspired by the New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations exhibition (April 4–August 10, 2025) at the New Orleans Museum of Art, this panel explores case studies that honor artist agency, cultural authenticity, and global accountability by centering the voices of African artists and their communities. Beyond celebration, this dialogue challenges us to rethink, reimagine, and drive actionable change toward a more just and accountable future for African art curation.

This virtual event, presented in partnership between the Arts Council of the African Studies Association and the New Orleans Museum of Art, is free with registration. Registration via the link below is required to receive webinar credentials before the event. Registration closes one hour before the event.

Register Here

Panelists:

Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Emelife has been the inaugural Curator of MOWAA (Museum of West African Art) in Benin City, Nigeria since 2023. Emelife is on the Board of Trustees for New Curators.

Genevieve Hill-Thomas is an art history professor at Ringling College of Art and Design where she combines her love of African art history with her background as a textile artist. Occasionally she works with local museums that hold collections of African art. She volunteers with the nonprofit Florida Craft Art in St. Petersburg, Florida to teach crochet to local middle school students during the school year, and with DIMA, a non-profit art school, in Niamey, Niger to help faculty and students in the weaving department.

Jean Borgatti is Consulting Curator – Global Africa, First Peoples – N. America & Oceania at Fitchburg Art Museum and long term affiliate of Clark University and Boston University. She is one of the pioneering theorists and scholars committed to recognizing, documenting, and advocating for the individuality of masquerade artists. Dr. Borgatti’s research and advisory role will connect some of the earliest scholarship in individual masquerade artists to that of this project, which puts a contemporary spin on her foundational work.

Jordan A. Fenton is associate professor of art history at Miami University, with an emphasis on the visual and performed expression of Nigerian masquerade arts, secret societies, esoteric knowledge systems, funerary rituals and installations, dress, economics and ways in which so-called “traditional” arts and artists operate in metropolitan cities. At Miami, Fenton teaches introductions on non-Western art and courses and seminars exploring Africa and its Diaspora. He is the co-curator of the New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations author of Masquerade and Money in Urban Nigeria: The Case of Calabar (University of Rochester Press, 2022).  

Paul R. Davis is Curator of Collections at the Menil Collection in Houston, TX. His academic research and publications focus on the visual arts and sociopolitical histories from the colonial and post-independence eras (18th–20th century) in West Africa. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellow based in Mali (West Africa). Davis was a co-director of the Collections Analysis Collaborative (CAC), an educational and object-based research initiative on the Menil’s ancient Mediterranean holdings with Rice University and University of Houston Clear Lake. His exhibition projects at the Menil have included ReCollecting Dogon (2017), Mapa Wiya (Your Map’s Not Needed): Australian Aboriginal Art from the Fondation Opale (2019), Enchanted: Visual Histories of the Central Andes (2021), Samuel Fosso: African Spirits (2022), Art of the Cameroon Grassfields, A Living Heritage in Houston (2023), and A Surrealist Wunderkammer (2024).

Please reach out to Caroline Bastian, ACASA Admin, with any questions at bastian@acasaonline.org.

Applications are open for African Critical Inquiry Programme’s 2025 Ivan Karp
Doctoral Research Awards to support African doctoral students in humanities and
humanistic social sciences at South African universities conducting relevant dissertation
research. ACIP seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of
public culture, public cultural institutions, and public scholarship in shaping identities and
society in Africa. Ivan Karp Awards are open to African postgraduate students
registered in South African PhD programmes working on topics related to ACIP=s focus.
Maximum award ZAR 50,000.
For full information see ACIP Opportunities at
http://www.graduateschool.emory.edu/about/special/acip.html.
ACIP is a partnership between Centre for Humanities Research at University of Western
Cape and Laney Graduate School of Emory University