The project debuts new acquisitions for LACMA and expands the Pan-African exhibition canon, historically focused on the Black Atlantic, by showcasing artists working along the Pacific Rim. Nearly 70 works of painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, and time-based media are organised into four themes: speech and silence, movement and transformation, imagination, and representation.

Muholi’s Thando II, Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy, 2015, which forms part of the artists on-going self-portraiture series, Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), is the work on show. This prolific project responds to the near invisibility of Black women and non-binary bodies as subjects of representation in the history of Western painting and portraiture prior to the 20th century. These images are also acts of resistance, referring to personal stories, colonial and Apartheid histories of exclusion and displacement, as well as ongoing racism.

Ukukhula I and Ukukhula II are the two ceramic sculptures by Zizipho Poswa that are on display. Originally made for Southern Guild’s group exhibition Colour Field (2018), they were subsequently a gift of the 2019 Decorative Arts and Design Acquisitions Committee to the museum. 

“Ukukhula” means growth in isiXhosa – a reference to the artist’s personal and creative journey as a ceramicist, who at the time, was making her foray into collectible design. These works marked the first time Poswa pushed her medium to a more monumental level, simultaneously delving deeper into her personal narrative. Using heightened colour (her trademark), expressive textures and abstracted shapes, these twin sculptures both summon and thwart our attention, alluding to the successes and struggles the artist has encountered along the way. Likewise, they play with the duality of masculine and feminine, aggression and protection – an apt and moving distillation of Poswa’s experience as a Xhosa woman connected to her traditional heritage, while staking her claim as a contemporary artist.

Imagining Black Diasporas has an accompanying catalogue to which contemporary poets contributed original work, extending the historical use of poetry in Pan-African discourse.

Diaspora’s general definition as a displacement from origins excludes all the creativity the term entails. People reinvent their heritage through artistic expressions, transforming diaspora from regional movement into a wellspring of imagination. Through an analysis of Black artists’ aesthetic choices, Imagining Black Diasporas reveals their insights about existence.

Artists include Mark Bradford, Lorna Simpson, Calida Rawles, El Anatsui, Josué Azor, Isaac Julien, Frida Orupabo, Theaster Gates, Yinka Shonibare and Wangechi Mutu, among others.