The Geometry of ADAMA

I've been thinking about what ADAMA means to me: What first excited me about the idea of a new art museum in Atlanta centering the African Diaspora; Why I so desperately wanted to be a part of this growing thing even as the early days of the pandemic brought everything down around me. Founded as the creative vision of Artist & Scholar, Fahamu Pecou, I spent months trying to woo my way into the organization before being brought on as an Events Intern. Since that first Arts Salon caught my attention in March 2020, there have been almost thirty panel discussions, two multidisciplinary film premieres, a curated playlist of artist profiles, and now this blog. When I think about how they all come together, and what small part I've been able to contribute, I keep coming back to the word geometry.

Set against a minimalist backdrop of inverted monochrome triangles designed by contemporary artist, George Gomez, the ADAMA acronym (an abbreviation for: African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta) and its corresponding logo offer visual cues of clean lines blending into acute angles. I love the uncomplicated symmetry of it.

But there's also a more subtle mathematics to this museum that holds my attention beyond just its visual aesthetic. Maybe it's the way all those clean lines represent for me the many cultural and creative perspectives that come together every day in this city historically known as the Black Mecca. ADAMA's mission highlights the ever-present reality that for Black people of the diaspora, "Everywhere We Go, There We Are." This idea speaks to me of right angles and turned corners and straight lines that always lead back to a singular center. What does it mean to get on a plane (from the busiest airport in the world) and land somewhere different but that is also a complete reflection of oneself because of the people in that new place?

Is it a coincidence that the aerial view over most of our city is a veinous scramble of weaving, intersecting streets that reminds me of works by both Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe (J'habite la Terre; 2017) and Radcliffe Bailey (EW, SN; 2011)? Like many transplants to Atlanta from other parts of the country, I once lamented the abscence of a typical city grid that might allow for easier navigation along neat square blocks of thoroughfare. Lately, I've grown to love that defining feature. It represents a unique culture and an uneven, scrappy, grittiness that not every city or community can lay claim to. Both Kyungu Mwilambwe and Bailey infuse similar elements of disjointed geometry (and geography) into artworks highlighting cultural practices like body scarification, the political evolution of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and historical periods of change like the Great Migration. I love the way art has the power to lend context and connection to such seemingly disparate ideas.

ADAMA feels poised to offer that same impact for both the local Atlanta community and a broader diasporic nexus. Some of my favorite ADAMA moments have involved exactly that kind of collaboration: With Villa Albertine and the French Consulate to present Maboula Soumahoro at our first in-person Arts Salon. With residents of English Avenue, Komanse Dance, Orchestra Noir, and the High Museum of Art for Permanent Project: EW, SN. And, with Power Haus Creative and Goorin Bros for the Wear Your Crown benefit auction. Already, ADAMA's repertoire spans the range of visual art, dance, scholarship, music, community outreach, filmmaking, high-fashion wearable art, curatorial practice, and the written word.

As an experimental writer and artist myself, I am most excited for greater possibilities along the lines of that last point. The experimental writer Renee Gladman, who was born in SW Atlanta, explores the idea of sentence-making and writing in general as a type of architecture and an artistic practice. The reminder of this detail brings me back to my original thought about ADAMA as a kind of geometry. What is the structure of Atlanta as a physical place, a concept, and a work of art? Does it exist, perhaps, in the ATL sculpture that sits in Downtown Atlanta's Woodruff Park? If so, I can't escape the same angled lines and crisp architecture that bring it into being.

I sense a similar, though more insular, kind of place-making in Omerettà the Great's, Sorry NOT Sorry, anthem that took over city culture earlier this Spring. The repetition of "It's not Atlanta" (probably more aptly spelled ATLANNNA...) is the type of catchy hook that invites everyone to sing along while making it clear not all of us newcomers have the full cultural reference. As one of those newcomers, I'm okay with that boundary. I think the culture, art, and values of any place (or organization) are defined by its language - and the geometric/geographic boundaries of that language.

Is such geometry a product of ancient Egypt, Nubia, Greece, or the Arab world? Is it a physical, creative, or spiritial construct? Insomuch as African diasporic history extends across each of these regions, I see them as so many throughlines representing our many cultural and creative perspectives.

Likewise, when I ask myself if our museum acronym, ADAMA, is pronounced: uh-DAHM-uh? Or more in line with the Malian/Senegalese/Nigerian given name, Adama: AHH-duh-muh? For me, this is both a geometry question and a cultural one. And, again, I lean toward the point where the two pronunciations intersect.

My hope for ADAMA going forward is that we are able to continue carving out our own artistic culture made up of these many shared and intersecting paths.

Constance Collier-Mercado