Praise House: Adama Delphine Fawundu

Curated by Dexter Wimberly

With Praise House, Adama Delphine Fawundu weaves a constellation of connections between herself and her global kin, mapping both physical and metaphysical movements across Africa and its diaspora. Fawundu's practice centers on memory, conjuring, and the radical imaginary, challenging the boundaries of the photographic medium.

The exhibition opens with an image of a physical praise house on St. Helena Island, built from weathered wooden planks. This sacred structure becomes a bridge between Fawundu's Mende heritage and the Gullah-Geechee communities of the Carolina Sea Islands.

Praise House is more than a site—it is a cosmological gesture. It envisions the migrations and transformations of African indigenous worldviews as they echo through the Caribbean, the Americas, and Europe. Ultimately, Praise House is a love song for our humanity, our environment, and the future we are called to imagine and co-create.

Adama Delphine Fawundu is a Brooklyn-based visual artist of Mende, Bubi, and Krim ancestry. Her practice engages themes of ancestral technology, intelligence, memory, and radical imagination. She has exhibited internationally, including at the 36th São Paulo Biennial in Brazil, the Congo Biennial (2025), and the inaugural Malta Biennial (2024). Her current solo exhibition is on view at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (September 13, 2025-June 14, 2026).

Fawundu is the co-author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, CatchLight Fellowship, Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and the Rema Hort Mann Artist Grant. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, Bryn Mawr College, Norton Museum of Art, and the David C. Driskell Center. She is also an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University.

Photo credit: Amal Buford

Dexter Wimberly is an American curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions at institutions and galleries around the world including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, North Carolina; KOKI ARTS in Tokyo; BODE in Berlin; Lehmann Maupin in London; SECCI in Milan; and The Third Line in Dubai. His exhibitions have been reviewed in The New York Times and Artforum, and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency and The Kyoto Retreat in Japan.