» Unveiling the Legacy of Avery: Bolaji Campbell, Ph.D.

I was a visiting assistant professor and postdoctoral fellow at the Avery Research Center during the 2001-2002 academic year. Having spent the greater part of my initial experiences of American society in predominantly white environments, a year at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville…another between Irvington, New Jersey and the Upper eastside of Manhattan New York as a Coleman Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art….plus three years as a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin- Madison… It was absolutely refreshing being surrounded for the first time by the nurturing environment of black folks at Avery. I felt completely at home here at Avery and it was during this remarkable period that I subsequently turned my doctoral dissertation into a book manuscript. One of the most significant memories of that period was sending that book manuscript to academic presses for consideration. It was absolutely gratifying that the book manuscript was subsequently published as “Painting for the Gods: Art and Aesthetics of Yoruba Religious Mural” by Africa World Press in 2009…

Again, I returned to Avery in 2009 to participate in a group exhibition in the Arts of African American Foodways, from June to October 2009. The exhibition was organized by Tasting Cultures. 

While conducting field research for my next book on Yoruba Masking in Africa and its Diaspora, I returned again to Avery in the summer of 2014 while visiting Oyotunji Village in Sheldon, South Carolina. That research resulted in another book, “Fabric of Immortality: Ancestral Power, Performance and Agency in Egungun Artistry” published again by Africa World Press 2020.

I am currently Professor of African and African Diaspora Art at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.