Purpose & People
Dr. Robert Farris Thompson, the most honored African art historian of his generation, was an innovative scholar who revolutionized the study and understanding of Afro-Diasporic cultures and practices. He refined the concept of “Afro-Atlantic,” while tracing and codifying essential connections between Africa and its diaspora, and was the first researcher to utilize semiotics, ideography, gesture, music, dance and three-dimensional secular as well religious objects as parts of a unified cultural system.
His integrative, context-based approach recognized the inseparability of the visual arts from music and dance, as well as from its creators. Reflecting a holistic Africa-centered perspective of culture, Thompson understood that daily life, the arts and spirituality are one. His contact-intensive methodology emphasized the importance of immersive fieldwork with cultural creators as well as language and cultural fluency. This enabled an active participation, setting a standard for scholarship rooted in direct experiences and respect.
Thompson’s recognition of the intrinsic necessity of a conscious cultural positioning is in direct opposition to the continued intellectual colonialism of Euro-centric approaches to knowledge. The Robert Farris Thompson Maroon Institute for Afro-Diasporic Arts is dedicated to preserving and advancing his legacy by empowering, and supporting Afro-Diasporic communities of traditional leaders and artist-practitioners. As Greg Tate stated:
“A giant of African/Black Atlantic cultural and aesthetic scholarship…The impact of Robert Farris Thompson’s books and lectures on C. Daniel Dawson, David Hammons, Kellie Jones, Kerry James Marshall, Arthur Jafa, Judith Wilson, Henry Louis Gates, and Sanford Biggers, among many others, was immense—especially Flash of the Spirit which we essayed upon in Flyboy In the Buttermilk under the title ‘Guerilla Scholar On The Loose’.”
To learn more about RFT scholarship and publications, click here.
—PETRA RICHTEROVÁ AND C. DANIEL DAWSON
Cover photo of Robert Farris Thompson by C. Daniel Dawson, Timothy Dwight College, Yale University, 2009.Photo courtesy of Yale University
“The spirit, knowledge, understanding and wisdom of Robert Farris Thompson transcend conventional academe. He was a person who, like the title of one of his most famous articles, ‘Dancing Between Two Worlds,’ shared the deep philosophical and lived wisdom of his African and African Diaspora artists, elders, teachers, mentors and friends to enlighten and enrich the world.”
–HENRY DREWAL
New York: The Secret African City by Mark Kidel for BBC's ARENA, 1989.
DIRECTOR & FOUNDER
Petra Richterová, PhD – Africanist Scholar, Photographer, Filmmaker
C0-DIRECTOR
C. Daniel Dawson – Africanist Scholar, Curator, Photographer
SENIOR ADVISORS
George Nelson Preston, PhD – Scholar of Classical African Art, Painter
Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, PhD – Africanist Scholar
Henry Drewal, PhD – Africanist Scholar
Alexander LaSalle – Tata Nkisi, Scholar, Musician
ADVISORY BOARD
Robert G. O’Meally, PhD – Scholar of African American Culture
Michael E. Veal, PhD – Africana Musicologist and Musician
Yanique Hume, PhD – Scholar of the Caribbean and Dancer
Ivor Miller, PhD – Africanist Scholar
Marta Moreno Vega, PhD – Scholar of Afro Latino Cultures and Ìyálórìṣà
Will Calhoun – Drummer, Scholar and Innovator
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Roberto García Matus, MFA – Filmmaker, Sound Designer, Creative Producer
DR. PETRA RICHTEROVÁ, born in Czechoslovakia (1978) and raised in Canada, is a scholar, photographer, and filmmaker who received her doctorate from Yale University specializing in African and Afro-Diasporic Arts under the tutelage of Robert Farris Thompson (2010). She moved to New York City after high school to apprentice with modernist photographer Frank Stewart and attend Hunter College. She has photographed for Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Black Rock Coalition, and her images have been shown at Columbia University, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Petra’s award-winning debut short sonic film, On My Mind (Blue Note Records), premiered with Afropunk in 2020. She followed with Are You Hearing Me? (Vibe Music Collective) in 2021 and Amygdala (Strick Muzic) in 2023. Her 2022 monograph, Sound of Light: Music Photography and Conversations with the Artists, spans 25 years of photography capturing the griots of Black music. As a 2022 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center, she developed her forthcoming scholarly book, Rumba: A Philosophy of Motion. Petra is an Officer of Research at Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies, and Professor of African and African American art at Savannah College of Art and Design. Learn more about Petra here: www.petra-richterova.com and @petrarichterovaphotography. Photo by Deneka Peniston.
Professor C. DANIEL DAWSON has a research focus on the African diaspora and its culture. He has taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas and has worked as a photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, and consultant. He served as curator of photography, film and video at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center, and Curatorial Consultant and Director of Education at the Museum for African Art. He has lectured at Yale, Princeton, New York University, University of Iowa, University of California - Berkeley, University of Texas - Austin, University of Wisconsin - Madison, The New School for Social Research, House of World Cultures - Berlin, Kit Tropenmuseum-Amsterdam and Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. As a photographer, he has shown his work in more than 30 exhibitions. He has also curated more than 40 exhibitions, including Harlem Heyday: The Photographs of James Van Der Zee and The Sound I Saw: The Jazz Photographs of Roy DeCarava. Dawson has been Associated with many prize-winning films, including Head and Heart by James Mannas and Capoeiras of Brazil by Warrington Hudlin. Learn more about Danny here: www.afamstudies.columbia.edu. Photo by Ronald Herard.
DR. GEORGE NELSON PRESTON, aka Nana Anakwa II, the Aboafohene of Akuapem-Mamfe, Ghana (b. 1938), is a scholar of African art, painter, and author of influential writings on classical and contemporary African art. He has contributed as curator, writer, or presenter for major institutions including The Bronx Museum, Brooklyn Museum, the MET, the Smithsonian Institution, Museu Afro Brasil, MASP, the Schomburg Center, and African Arts magazine. In 1959, he founded the Artist’s Studio on East Third St., a landmark venue for Beat generation poets. Preston earned his BA from City College (1962) and his MA (1968) and PhD (1973) from Columbia University, completing his dissertation on the Akan art and leadership complex. He taught African Art History at Cooper Union, Rutgers, and City College/CUNY, where he is now Emeritus Professor, and has authored books including Sets, Series and Ensembles in African Art (1985) and African Art Masterpieces (1991). A member of the Florence Biennale’s scientific committee, he founded the Museum of Art and Origins in Harlem (2005). His honors include election to the Pierre Verger Chair of the Academia Brasileira de Arte in 2016. Learn more about George here: www.museumofartandorigins.com. Photo by Frank Stewart.
DR. BÁRBARO MARTÍNEZ-RUIZ (b. 1967, Cuba), is one of the foremost Africanist art historians of his generation. He received his BA from the Universidad de La Habana (1994), and his PhD from Yale University (2004) mentored by Robert Farris Thompson. He specializes in Afro-diasporic culture, challenging traditional disciplinary boundaries. After teaching at Havana’s High Institute of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Stanford University, he joined the University of Cape Town (2013), where he has served as Head of Art History and Discourse of Art. A former Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Oxford and Senior Fellow at St. Anthony’s and Trinity College, he is the author of Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign (2013) and co-author of Art and Emancipation in Jamaica (2007). His publications span topics including Kongo cosmology, Afro-Atlantic visual practices, and Wifredo Lam. He is currently developing Unwrapping the Universe: Art and Cosmology Among the Bakongo, a study of Bakongo aesthetics. Learn more about Bárbaro here: www.anthro.ox.ac.uk. Photo by University of Cape Town.
DR. HENRY DREWAL, (b. 1943) earned his B.A. from Hamilton College before serving in the Peace Corps in Nigeria, where apprenticing with a Yoruba sculptor transformed his path toward African art history. He completed two master’s degrees and a PhD at Columbia University, specializing in African art, anthropology, and history. Drewal taught at Cleveland State University, SUNY–Purchase, and UC–Santa Barbara, and later served as Curator of African Art at the Neuberger Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Toledo Museum of Art. From 1991–2019, he was the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Adjunct Curator of African Art at the Chazen Museum. A leading scholar of Yoruba and African diasporic arts, he has published extensively, curated major exhibitions—including Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought and Beads, Body, and Soul—and conducted groundbreaking research on African-descended communities in India. Learn more about Henry here: www.henrydrewal.com. Photo by University of Wisconsin-Madison.
ALEXANDER LASALLE is a Bomba musician, scholar and high priest (Tata Nkisi) to one of the oldest houses of Kongo-Cuban Palo in Cuba and now New York City – Batalla Sacampeño Mayombe. His teacher and mentor is Florencio Miguel Garzon (“Loanganga”) from Cuba. In addition to serving as a diviner and priest, Alex is also a specialist in hundreds of Afro-Cuban Kongo Mambo songs and rituals. He is fluent in the Afro-Cuban Bantu/Kongo language, is an avid researcher and oral historian. He has presented lectures for educators and students at Yale University, Columbia University, New York University and Long Island University. A teaching artist in the public schools of New York City, Alex is the founder and director of Alma Moyo Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba group, and member of Grammy Nominated Los Pleneros de la 21 and Grupo Folklórico Experimental Nueva Yorquino. He has performed with such groups as Roberto Cepeda’s Bomba Aché, William Cepeda’s Afro-Boricua, Felix Alduén y su Tambores, Pa’lo Monte, Nchila Ngoma Mayombe, and 21 Division. Learn more about Alma Moyo here: @almamoyomusic. Photo by CCCADI.