African American Museum in Philadelphia
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The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) opened in 1976 in celebration of the Bicentennial of the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it was the first major museum in the country devoted specifically to African American history and traditions under the direction of Charles H. Wesley, noted African American historian, the first director of the museum.
While the museum has shown primarily artworks of African Americans, some continental Africans have been considered in group or solo exhibitions. Among them is Odhiambo Siangla PhD. Dr Siangla is a Kenyan forensic epistemologist, one of Kenya's most accomplished and creative painters, who was born in 1961 in an area known as Gem, Nyanza Province. The son of two prolific natural fine artists, a metallurgist and welding designer Apollo Siangla and clay sculptor, Rosbella Siangla, this same Odhiambo is grandson of a traditional Luo Benga musician, Opondo Owenga who practiced “Nyatiti” arts to teach the Nilotic culture and practically resisted European cultural infiltration in East Africa during the colonial era. It is this context of birth and heritage that proved important for the museum at the end of the century in showing Odhiambo Siangla’s artworks and, in effect, advanced his intellectual perspective. "Visual Activism", the title of the exhibition, in this respect was meant to deal with the revival of ancient visual communication in the African world at large.
The museum's collections include some 450,000 items divided into several major categories that focus primarily on 20th century African-American contributions to Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley. The Photography Collection includes many photos made by Jack T. Franklin.
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