St. Paul exhibition showcases African diaspora artists

The African Museum, Arts, and Cultural Center is bringing artists and community members together for its Black History Month exhibition, “In Our Presence,” a showcase highlighting the work of four African American artists: Kay Heino, Rajine Williams, Arnée Martin, and Jeannine Erickson. The exhibition creates a space for reflection, connection and storytelling through art.

“We are part of the nonprofit organization the African Economic Development Center,” said Lokho Kotile, programs coordinator at the Cultural Center. “What they aim to do in their mission is support small businesses in Africa and the diaspora, providing funds, loans, guidance on grants, and under that, they created this museum gallery called the African Museum, Arts, and Cultural Center.”

“Our main mission is to highlight African in the diaspora artists, basically having a space for us by us and giving artists that spotlight,” said Kotile. “In Our Presence” was created specifically for Black History Month and will remain on view through Feb. 27.

Community building is central to the museum’s programming, Kotile said. “We try to have an exhibit every month or every other month.

 “We had a West African exhibition showcasing West African artists. It was a sound exhibition within the paintings and the works. The artists created QR codes so viewers could listen to the music inspired by each piece.”

“Anything that can bring community together and showcase African and diaspora artists is what we’re about,” Kotile added.

For Twin Cities-based visual multimedia artist and educator Rajine Williams, whose work explores Black womanhood, identity, embodiment, and emotional interiority, the exhibition presents an opportunity to challenge expectations about what Black art “should” look like.

“I like to say my artwork aesthetic is Afrocentric eclectic,” Williams said. “The showcase is literally about showing Black artistry in different forms and levels, and the eclecticness around it.

“We’re all from the Black African diaspora, but all our work looks different. It shows up differently. It’s not cookie-cutter, like the media wants Black artwork to look.”

Williams began creating art in 2020 just a few blocks from where George Floyd was killed, during a time of grief and loss for Minneapolis. Her work serves as a form of protest rooted in lived experiences.

“This is a form of protest, showing ourselves on a canvas, wood fiber, or whatever our mediums are,” Williams said. “My artwork is through my Black experience and my lens. I consider myself an alternative Black girl, kind of different, quirky, and out there.”

“All of my pieces are found in recycled material,” Williams said. “The canvas portraits are recycled canvases from an art thrift store, and the larger three-dimensional pieces are cardboard and paper, with recycled canvases. I like to repurpose things I find value in that have been thrown away.”

For artist Jeannine Erickson, art has been a source of healing and self-affirmation. She began creating at a young age as a way to express her voice.

“I was raised in an all-white family. I’m adopted,” Erickson said. “Being a biracial Black woman adopted into the suburbs in the 2000s was a very unique experience in Minnesota.”

“Self-portraiture was one of the first ways for me to affirm myself and see myself in a lens that wasn’t like those dolls or Disney princesses,” Erickson said. “This is a way to make an image that feels like home, safe and comfortable.”

She describes her work as both healing and joyful. “There’s a lot of freedom, agency, and self-determination in self-portraiture,” Erickson said. 

“It’s like a living journal or encapsulated immortalization of yourself… You can look back and remember what you were feeling, where your heart was, and what your hopes and dreams were.”

The exhibit is open for viewing Feb. 7–27 at the African Museum, Arts, and Cultural Center. For more information, visit https://www.instagram.com/africanmuseum.mn/.

Lizzy Nyoike is a Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication student and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.