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This chapter will examine The Global Africa Project exhibition that was organized at a transitional moment for the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) and at a moment when Africa was emerging on the contemporary global art market. As MAD was involved in the process of building a new institutional identity (it was formerly known as the American Craft Museum), a focus on Africa indicated an expansion of the scope of its exhibitions, programming, and acquisitions beyond its habitual focus on the United States, Europe, and Asia. The exhibition also became an indicator of how MAD was exploring a more interdisciplinary perspective on craft, examining its synchronicities with the genres of fashion, design/décor, photography, and fine arts. This chapter will reveal the challenges of doing a global exhibition at a moment of a monetary challenge in 2008/09, and when information on and communications with African creators were primarily through the World Wide Web, artists’ websites and blogs, social media, and other online vehicles. It will parse curatorial decisions about the scope of the exhibition, and how they accommodated the reality of the migratory careers of many global designers, craftspersons, and artists of African descent and heritage. It will also illuminate how the project challenged the usual distinctions between “professional” and “artisan” in the art market. The chapter will cover the evolution of the thematic sections of the exhibition, and how they were reflected in the subsequent publication and the installation at the Museum of Arts and Design.
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