Fort Greene’s MoCADA opens new Ubuntu Garden with sculptural series of ‘Living Legends’

The new Ubuntu Garden at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art.

Photo by Susan de Vries

The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts recently celebrated its newly built-out Ubuntu Garden, located alongside a brownstone on a sliver of land previously used for parking. An “early look” at the space — which is set to open to the public on Sept. 1 — included music, a procession, and an unveiling of artwork. 

The new artwork, named “Brooklyn Bronzes” in a nod to the Benin Bronzes, currently consists of 20 bronze mask-like portraits depicting “Brooklyn’s living legends — the Black pillars of our community who have contributed greatly to arts, education, and advocacy through their work,” artist Kholisile Dhilwayo said in an artists’ statement on MoCADA‘s website.

bronze statues at ubuntu garden

Created by Dhliwayo, an artist and architect, the sculptures are mounted in a line on the garden’s rear brick wall under an eye-catching two-story-high mural of the late art and music critic Greg Tate at 48 Lafayette Avenue on a busy corner a few blocks from MoCADA’s headquarters. Under each is a label with a QR code that plays audio of the featured person speaking about their “legacy, their joy, and resilience,” as MoCADA put it. The ongoing series could eventually immortalize 80 or more people.

“Brooklyn Bronzes is a spatial and oral narrative monument to the joy, resistance, resilience, and legacy of Black advocates, community organizers, artists, educators, and spiritual leaders. Their commitment and legacy serve as a reminder that we too are future ancestors,” Dhilwayo said in an artists’ statement.

Among those depicted are organizer and educator Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele, playwright and screen writer Lynn Nottage, founder and president of nonprofit Children of Promise Sharon Content, New York City urban planner Ibon Manar Muhammadi, Bed-Stuy art gallery founder Richard Beavers, and MoCADA founder and former City Council member…

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