From Occupy Wall Street to the protests in Egypt, social unrest and social media have become inseparable.
Drawing from artists here in Brooklyn as well as those from abroad, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts’ newest show of multimedia art and installations strives to paint a picture of the world where revolution in Africa can feel just as real as the one around the corner.
“With the Occupy movement here in New York, it was easy to trace it back to the movements in Africa,” said Jessica Moore, one of the curators of “Newsfeed: Anonymity & Social Media in African Revolutions and Beyond.”
“And with social media you get to see the stories that TV and other forms of mass communication haven’t covered. There’s a dissonance about what revolution means and how we’re supposed to hear about it.”
Among the Brooklynites featured in the show put on by MoCADA, which will be augmented by two satellite exhibitions nearby, are photographer Delphine Fawundu-Buford, artist Nyeema Morgan, and mixed media maverick Malcolm Andre Davis II.
And it will focus on notions of media and nations, like the interactive map of Africa which will break down newsfeeds and YouTube videos by country.
Moore says part of the goal of the museum and exhibit is expanding the notion of Africa in the first place, evidenced by the work of Barka, a London-based artist who work she says addresses the rejection of Africanness by the North African and predominantly Arab countries.
“There is this idea of assuming that everyone or everything that comes out of Africa has to be black,” said Moore. “But MoCADA has an interest in covering everything and everyone.”
“NEWSFEED: Anonymity & Social Media in African Revolutions and Beyond,” at MoCADA [80 Hanson Pl. at South Portland Street, (718) 230–0492, www.mocada.org]. Oct. 18 through Jan. 20.
Reach reporter Eli Rosenberg at erosenberg@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2531. And follow him at twitter.com/emrosenberg.
