PHILADELPHIA (September 27, 2023) – Kendeja Collective is proud to present the Fall Winter 2023 Collection featuring the work of artists from Africa and its diaspora. The opening reception will take place on Friday September 29th at Ubuntu Fine Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The works will be on view in-person at Ubuntu through Sunday October 1st and online through Kendeja Collective’s website.. Artists in the Fall Winter 2023 Collection work across painting, sculpture, and photography. Their names include Valerie Asiimwe Amani (@ardonaxela), Michael Dela Dika (@mcmichaeldika), Frank Dwuye (@frankdwuye), Aïcha Fall (@aichfa), Abu Fofana (@fofana2120), Naomieh Jovin (@njovn), Stephanie Lindquist (@stephlindquist), Leslie Lumeh (@leslielumeh) and T. Williams (@ashave_art).
Image courtesy of Kendeja Collective
Kendeja Collective is an online platform grounded by physical exchanges that fosters sustainable connections to African heritage through African diasporic art. The Collective is named after the National Cultural Center of Liberia, which in 1964 opened in an area of Paynesville, Liberia called Kendeja, and thus was commonly referred to as Kendeja. The Center was destroyed during the Liberian civil wars and a new cultural center has yet to be erected. While Kendeja Collective cannot replace the original Center, the Collective provides a platform to showcase and celebrate artistic developments in Liberia and Africa as a whole to demonstrate that African art—in its various translocal and transcultural forms—cultivates agency, collectivity, advancement, and innovation for Africa and its diaspora.
Image courtesy of Kendeja Collective
Fall_Lemon Seller, 2021_Hahnemühle print
A signature feature of Kendeja Collective is the platform’s Liberia Collection—which takes space as an effort to envision works that might occupy a contemporary cultural center in Liberia. The Liberia Collection includes artists from Liberia and of its diaspora who engage with and work in the wake of Liberia’s complex history of Black liberation, Black colonization, and Black Atlantic convergences. These artists represent the voices of Liberian contemporary art that urge considerations around the developments of lineage and culture in the country. Viewing them collectively stimulates the conceptualization of a twenty-first-century Liberian modernism.
All works are on view and available for purchase at https://kendeja.co.
Image courtesy of Kendeja Collective
PRESS CONTACTS
Abigail Kim; abigail@abigail-kim.com
About Kendeja Collective
Kendeja Collective is an online platform grounded by physical exchanges that partners directly with artists of African descent to sell, exhibit, and contextualize their artworks amongst the diaspora, and beyond.
Founder and Director Nectar Knuckles is a writer and art historian. She has contributed to exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Knuckles is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.
Instagram: @kendejacollective Website: https://kendeja.co/
