Meditations on the African, Andean & Asian Diasporas



Curated by artist William Cordova for Round 32 of Project Row Houses, eco, xiang, echo brings together a multigenerational group of artists from various backgrounds and geographic locations. Working in photography, performance, installation, drawing and sculpture, each artist presents work that addresses the often-overlooked connections between distinct cultures. These connections range from paralleling historical narratives to fantastical freedom dreamscapes. This project is a platform for a continued dialogue around the notions of collective consciousness in the Diasporas represented in this exhibition.

Participating Artists include Crystal Campbell, Albert Chong, Coco Fusco, Marina Gutierrez, Ayana V. Jackson, Minette Mangahas, Glexis Novoa, Mendi and Keith Obadike.


The exhibition is open and free to the public from March 27 through June 20, 2010:

Project Row Houses

2521 Holman Street

Houston, Texas


Artist/Community Talk

Thursday, March 25, 2010

7pm



Open Forum: Diaspora: Connections & Crossroads: a moderated conversation with local and national students, social activists, educators and artists.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

2pm



Also on view in conjunction with Fotofest, Project Row House presents new works by New York/ Philadelphia based artist Nsenga Knight






Sonic Mbari
(Praise House)



Mendi + Keith Obadike make music, art and literature.

For their installation at Project Row Houses, Sonic Mbari (Praise House) (2010) uses the Igbo (Nigerian) concept of the Mbari. An Mbari is a traditional Igbo community-commissioned gallery. Decorated with abstract patterns and filled with art objects, an Mbari is usually created by an artist for a specific community. It functions as a religious offering, and its purpose is to praise, thank, or appease the gods. At the center of an Mbari is a representation of Ala (the goddess of the Earth) and her husband, Amadi-Oha (the god of thunder). They are using this Sonic Mbari as a gallery for the Third Ward community in Houston, TX. The soundscape in this installation is a combination of original music and sounds combined with the sounds of the Third Ward community. Sonic Mbari is a companion piece to and contains narrative elements taken from their recent opera-masquerade, Four Electric Ghosts.






Mendi + Keith Obadike make music, art and literature. Their works include The Sour Thunder, an Internet opera; Crosstalk: American Speech Music; a suite of new media artworks, Black.Net.Art Actions; Big House / Disclosure, a 200 hour public sound installation (Northwestern University); Armor and Flesh: poems; and Four Electric Ghosts, an opera-masquerade commissioned by The Kitchen. Their intermedia work has been commissioned by, exhibited at, and performed at the New Museum, The NY African Film Festival and Electronic Arts Intermix, Whitechapel Art Gallery (London), The Gene Siskel Film Center, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Whitney Museum of Art.



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