The Benin-Cameroon artist, Jeki Esso, aka Jeki, has created a visual time capsule. Using pictograms, symbols, patterns, mathematical equations, words in African languages, renderings of African architecture, and colors, she invites the viewer cross historic, cultural, linguistic, geographical, philosophical, and even ideational boundaries.
The reason why Jeki Esso has designed this mural is for it to serve as a visible symbol of contemplation, resilience, resistance, and connections. It is intended to provoke contemplation, instruct the unenlightened, facilitate reflection about the African roots of Africatown and the African American diaspora, and remind us about the veracity of what the continent of Africa has contributed to the artistic, intellectual, scientific, mathematical development of the world-centuries before Europeans. It is evidence of our humanity as Africans and African Americans. But mostly, through her art, Jeki has shared a bit of herself, her country, her worldview, her creativity as an African woman artist, with us, her kinfolk, in the United States.
Irma McClaurin, PhD.
Africatown Omotunde Mural. 35000 Years of African History
Jeki Esso
Foreword by Dieudonn Gnammankou, Ph.D.
Afterword by Irma McClaurin, Ph.D.
DAGAN Editions & Dagan Panafrican Press Group, October 2024