Lyman Allyn Art Museum opens [i]Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage[/i]

Written by Susan Hendricks Tuesday, 01 September 2009 22:50

New London, CT - Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, Imna Arroyo: Ancestral Passage, opening September 12, 2009 and on view through February 21, 2010.   Ancestral Passage, a room-sized multi-media installation, has been organized by Guest Curator Gustavo Valdés. Born and raised in Guayama, Puerto Rico, Imna Arroyo was educated in the United States and has been on a quest to visualize her heritage. Like so many other Puerto Ricans, she is of African and Taino descent and knowing little of those cultures, she journeyed to Cuba in search of her heritage. This installation, Ancestral Passage, is the result of her journeys.

Arroyo first visited Cuba six years ago and broadened her research into the African Diaspora.   Her trips to Cuba and Africa inspired her to create this work that addresses the Diaspora while reconnecting and visualizing the orishas of the Yoruba culture.  

Imna Arroyo has never been satisfied with merely illustrating her own physical presence in her art. Rather, she has used her work to express the profound richness of her heritage and the issues that confront her gender. Arroyo's journey reaches back to her ancestral heritage from Puerto Rico and Africa and forward to the global issues of empowerment of women today, creating a narrative journey in Ancestral Passage with the viewer as a participant.     

Imna Arroyo is a Distinguished Professor of Art at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut.   She studied at La Escuela de Artes Plasticas del Instituto de Cultura in San Juan, Puerto Rico and obtained her BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and her MFA from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.   Her work is in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection, Yale University Art Gallery and the Schomberg Center for Research and Black Culture.

Part of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s mission is to respond and to appeal to the regional community.   In that spirit, the museum has planned an exciting schedule of programs to accompany this exhibition.   The programs are designed to engage people of all ages.  

This exhibition is supported in part by the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund, Bank of America, Trustee and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, and the Hispanic Alliance of New London.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum is a community-based museum located in New London, Connecticut.   Founded in 1932 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn, the museum serves the people of Southeastern Connecticut and is free to New London families. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is a non-profit organization with 501(c) 3 status.   Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A. Platt, the permanent collection includes over 10,000 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, furniture and decorative arts, with an emphasis on American and European art from the 17^th through 20^th centuries.  

The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95.   The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm and Sunday 1:00 – 5:00 pm, closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 112 or visit us on the web at: www.lymanallyn.org .