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Updated 8/14/2016

Ifé Franklin

  • M

    MA

Institution/Business Type: Artist / Creative (Individual)

Ifé Franklin is an interdisciplinary visionary artist who is committed to her life's work, Ifé Franklin's Indigo Project. Ifé Franklin creates art that honors the lives and history of formerly enslaved Africans/African-Americans in the American South and the African Diaspora who labored in the harshest conditions to produce materials that generated the wealth of nations. Ifé Franklin's Indigo Project provides historical, artistic, and cultural components that speak to the lives of those that endured plantation existence. The project involves many genres of art-making, including the creation of life-sized structures resembling slave cabins that are produced with community involvement using Adire fabric dying techniques from the Yoruba culture of West Africa.

The cabin can take various forms: for example it can be covered in indigo fabric or painted indigo blue, with members of the community invited to create adire fabric or and/or to write a message to their ancestors directly on the cabin structure. The cabin and full installation consist of sculpture, tapestries, drawings, dolls, and other mixed-media work.  Ifé Franklin's Indigo Project also offers:

  • School- and community-based workshops and interactive discussions
  • Performances of The Slave Narrative of Willie Mae including the auction block scene
  • Miniature-slave cabin workshops
  • Adire fabric-dying workshops

Find Me

Ifé Franklin
Job Title: Multidisciplinary Artist
Phone: (617) 291-6213
Address:
158 School St., #2
Roxbury, MA 02119

Social Media:

About

Overview

Institution/Business Type:

Artist / Creative (Individual)

Legal Status:

Nonprofit - Unincorporated

Overview

Institution/Business Type:

Artist / Creative (Individual)

Legal Status:

Nonprofit - Unincorporated

Disciplines

Primary Discipline:

Multi-Disciplinary

Additional Disciplines:

  • Visual/Crafts - Sculpture

Activities and Services

Activities and Services:

  • Arts for Social Change / Creative Activism
  • Arts Instruction / Lessons
  • Performance / Concert / Reading
  • Creation of a Work of Art (Including Commissions)
  • Curriculum Development
  • Exhibitions
  • Public Art Projects (In Free, Public Spaces)
  • Residency - Community
  • Residency - In School
  • Residency - Production / Development
  • Residency - Other
  • Workshops / Demonstrations / Master Class
Seasons Active: spring, summer, fall, winter
Events Per Year: 20

Communities

Populations Engaged:

  • Adults
  • Elders
  • Families
  • General Public
  • Immigrant Populations
  • LGBTQ Populations
  • Nonprofits
  • People with Disabilities
  • School Groups
  • Teens
  • Youth-At-Risk

Geographic Reach:

  • Town / City
  • County
  • Multi-County Region
  • State
  • Multi-State Region
  • National