Rooted in the material culture and spiritual practices of the African diaspora, Ifé Franklin’s work honors the resilience, creativity, and ancestral wisdom of Black communities across generations. Drawing inspiration from pre-colonial African traditions and the rituals developed by enslaved Africans in the Americas, Franklin creates immersive sculptural installations and distinctive objects that serve as portals between past, present, and future.
Influenced by Ifá, the Yorùbá spiritual tradition of Nigeria, Franklin explores the relationship between the Orun, the spiritual realm, and the Aiye, the earthly realm. Her work reveals how these beliefs endured and evolved after the Transatlantic Slave Trade, blending West and Central African traditions with Indigenous and settler spiritual practices to form Hoodoo. Sacred traditions such as hush harbors—hidden woodland spaces for worship—and ring shouts—ceremonial circles of movement, song, and communal remembrance—appear throughout the exhibition as enduring expressions of faith, resistance, and cultural continuity.
Using materials and techniques passed down through generations—including indigo, clay, collage, and sculpture—Franklin celebrates craft as a vessel for memory, healing, and transformation. Her richly layered artworks evoke both ancestral presence and Afrofuturist possibility, inviting visitors to consider how inherited traditions inspire new visions of liberation and belonging.
Image: Fourth Ancestor Slave Cabin, 2017, Photo courtesy of the artist
Guest Curator: Chenoa Baker