Sankofa Freedom Academy (A)

Spring 2019
Classroom Teacher: Ayinde Purnell
Teaching-Artist: Uriah Bussey

Sankofa Freedom Academy students formulated ideas about what identity meant to them both as individuals and as part of the African-American community. They reimagined themselves as deities of their own design. Students constructed props and costumes to shape their reimagined identities, and took turns acting as creative directors and subjects for photo shoots. They edited their photographs with imaging software and eliminated the backgrounds of the photographs. They then carved designs, inspired by organic shapes and floral patterns, into linoleum blocks and printed these blocks around the photographs, to create complex images.