We be the luminous blues...

Opening Conversation

Adama Delphine Fawundu will discuss We be the luminious blues… with Professors of English and Comparative Literature Farah Jasmine Griffin and Shana L. Redmond.

Adama Delphine Fawundu is a first-generation visual artist born in Brooklyn, NY, with heritage from Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. Ms. Fawundu is a co-author/editor of the critically acclaimed book MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. This book features over 100 women photographers of African descent from around the globe. Fawundu was featured in the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary film In Our Mother’s Garden, directed by Shantrelle P. Lewis. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Catchlight Fellowship, Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant, as well as the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, among other awards. She received her MFA from Columbia University.

She has presented public installations at Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Federal Hall in New York City. Solo show exhibitions and performances include Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Newark Museum of Art, Art@Bainbridge/Princeton University, The Penumbra Foundation, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, African American Museum in Philadelphia, and Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts & Culture, among others.

In 2026, Fawundu released her first monograph Praise House on Archive Books. Also, her artist book In Search of the Spirit House was published by Express Newark and Project for Empty Space. Biennials include the 36th São Paulo Biennal (Brazil), the 1st Malta Biennal, and The 12th Edition of the Bamako Encounters Photography Biennial (Mali).

Her national and international exhibitions include Brooklyn Museum of Art, Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), Kunstverein Braunschweig, Maryland Institute of Art, Moody Center for the Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Chale Wote Art Festival (Ghana), Norton Museum of Art, and the California African American Museum, among others. She has participated in artist residencies at the Center for Book Arts, the African Artist Foundation (Nigeria), Sacatar Institute (Brazil), the Penumbra Foundation, Indigo Arts Foundation, BRIC Workspace Residency, and Project for Empty Space.

Her printmaking collaborations include the Brandywine Workshop and Archives and the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University.

Her works can be found in the collections at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Newark Museum of Art, Princeton University Museum, Bryn Mawr College, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Norton Museum of Art, the David C. Driskell Center (University of Maryland), and the Petrucci Family Foundation, as well as private collections.

September 17, 2026    6:30pm

Lenfest Center for the Arts, 615 West 129th Street New York, NY 10027

With questions, contact Gavin Browning at gdb2106@columbia.edu.

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: SEPTEMBER 8, 2026 – MARCH 14, 2027