The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts Presents Contemporary Indigenous Australian Artists

Written by Charles Gordon Friday, 16 September 2011 22:46

Brooklyn, New York. The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is proud to present the highly anticipated international exhibition entitled, "Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art", curated by Bindi Cole, on view until October 30th. This is the first international group exhibition of this kind to debut in New York City and the United States. The show will feature an array of works in a variety of media from a group of contemporary, indigenous, Australian-based artists. The word “No” does not exist in the majority of the over 200 Australian Aboriginal languages, and where it does exist, this powerful word is reserved for the elders and is used with great care and ceremony.

As these languages reach the brink of extinction, indigenous Australian artists are using contemporary art to assert their identity and culture and say no to racism, land theft and colonialism in an urban world. "Saying No" features sculpture, installation, painting, photography, video and mixed media works that highlight the use of visual art as a form of social and political protest in the current Australian Aboriginal struggle for the right to representation. Exhibiting artists include Tony Albert, Daniel Boyd, Maree Clarke, Bindi Cole, Vicki Couzens, Fiona Foley, James Henry & Oliver Winter-Irving, Dennis Nona, Zane Saunders and Yhonnie Scarce. Bindi Cole, the exhibition’s curator states, “The role of a contemporary Aboriginal artist, in my opinion, is to provoke.” The indigenous population has been subject to state sanctioned land displacement, ethnic cleansing and segregation - impoverishing their quality of life and relegating their culture to the margins of Australian society. Only recently has the government taken steps to apologize for the inhumane systems of oppression inflicted upon Australia’s native peoples. Saying No was organized through extensive travel between Australia and New York City to increase the visibility of contemporary Aboriginal artists and to reaffirm artistic practice as a site for civil dissonance for disenfranchised populations around the world.

MoCADA is committed to fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of the arts and cultures of the African Diaspora as it relates to contemporary urban issues. The experiences and cultural contributions of people of African descent have been marginalized throughout history and MoCADA’s mission is to undertake the responsibility of rewriting that history in order to give a more accurate portrayal of the contributions of people of African descent to the artistic and global landscape. MoCADA was founded in 1999 by Laurie A. Cumbo in a building owned by the historic Bridge Street AWME Church in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community in Brooklyn, New York. Given a rich history of artistic creativity and the high concentration of people of African descent in the borough, Cumbo founded MoCADA in response to Brooklyn’s overwhelming need for a museum reflective of the diverse arts and cultures of the African Diaspora. To achieve these ends, the MoCADA Planning Headquarters was created to begin the initial planning and construction of the museum. At the MoCADA Planning Headquarters, a small staff hosted community planning meetings and fundraising events, developed relationships with potential funders and garnered local community support to launch a project of incredible magnitude. Moreover, the temporary space afforded MoCADA the opportunity to mount art exhibitions for artists who had limited options. In 2006, MoCADA opened a new 1,700 square foot facility in the James E. Davis 80 Arts Building within the BAM Cultural District in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Since the museum’s inception, MoCADA has established a reputation for cutting edge exhibitions and programs that cross artistic disciplines, challenge the boundaries of the traditional museum and engage with local and international audiences. Through innovative curatorial projects, MoCADA informs and educates thousands of visitors each year about the cultures and art forms that have been developed as a result of the dispersal of people of African descent throughout the Americas, Europe and beyond. MoCADA’s exhibition program is complimented by a number of initiatives that serve to increase public access to the arts and cultivate the next generation of artists and arts professionals. The Artists-in-Schools program, the annual Soul of Brooklyn Week African Diaspora arts festival, the KIDFlix Film Festival of Bed Stuy, the Curatorial Fellowship for young scholars in the visual arts and the pre-college MoCADA Apprenticeship Program are but a few of the initiatives that the museum undertakes each year to achieve goals of cultivating new talent, bringing the arts to peoples lives and building communities. Visit the museum's website at ... http://mocada.org

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