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.
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.
