The Scattered Shards: Fifty Years After FESTAC ’77
Moyo Okediji, Tola Wewe, Esther Delaquis-Baidoo, Victoria Erioluwa Oniosun, Winifred Otowa, Adeola Olagunju
Sunday, January 17, 2027
- Sunday, May 2, 2027
Central Library - 710 W. César Chávez St.
Gallery (2nd Floor Southwest)
About the Exhibit
The Scattered Shards: Fifty Years After FESTAC ’77 is a six-artist exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77), held in Lagos, Nigeria.
The exhibition takes as its point of departure the legendary curse of Alaafin Aole, the eighteenth-century ruler of Oyo, who, before his death, pronounced that Africa would be dispersed, carried to the sea and beyond it. Breaking a vessel upon the ground, Aole transformed fragmentation into a metaphor for an irrevocably shattered world.
The Scattered Shards revisits that metaphor from the perspective of survival, transformation, and creativity. The shards did not disappear. Across Africa and the African diaspora, dispersed peoples carried memories, philosophies, spiritual systems, visual languages, rhythms, and aesthetic practices into new cultural environments. Their fragmented body healed and became beautiful in its transformation.
Exhibiting Artists:
Moyo Okediji, Tola Wewe, Esther Delaquis-Baidoo, Victoria Erioluwa Oniosun, Winifred Otowa,
Adeola Olagunju