SPECIAL EVENT
Africa!
Date:
September 1, 2019 – February 28, 2020
This fall we celebrate Africa’s world-shaping stories. Join us to experience new dimensions of this vast and complex continent — past, present, and future.
In line with our mission to connect cultures, we’ve partnered with African nations, museums, embassies, and members of the African diaspora to bring you a world-class lineup of art, performances, talks, and workshops.
CARAVANS OF GOLD, FRAGMENTS IN TIME
September 21, 2019 – February 23, 2020
Caravans of Gold, a groundbreaking exhibition, transports you to medieval times when western Africa was at the heart of a global economy, stretching to Europe, the Middle East, and beyond — a history largely left out of our Western textbooks.
BUILDING BLACK: CIVILIZATIONS
September 21, 2019 – February 23, 2020
Contemporary Ghanaian-Canadian artist Ekow Nimako speaks to Africa’s remarkable history and its powerful future in an Afrofuturist exhibition, featuring a series of surrealist sculptures built with over 100,000 black LEGO© Bricks.
CHALLENGING WHAT WE KNOW
Our season’s vibrant array of educational programming spotlights the history of African art and cultural exchange. Illuminating showcases from African embassies, thought-provoking local artists, and speakers from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art will challenge us to rethink what we know about the world.
PAN-AFRICAN MUSIC AND FILM
From Madagascar’s Toko Telo to the Okavango African Orchestra, our pan-African focus comes to life in our 2019/20 Performing Arts season, Listening to Each Other, which pays tribute to the role of the performative arts in connecting communities, preserving culture, and spurring social change.
With support from
