World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean

FAIN: GI-250116-16

Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL 61801-3620)
Allyson Purpura (Project Director: January 2016 to October 2021)
Sandy Prita Meier (Co Project Director: August 2016 to October 2021)

Implementation of a traveling museum about the complex arts of the Swahili Coast.

Co-curated by Dr. Allyson Purpura, Krannert Art Museum (KAM) senior curator and curator of African Art, and Dr. Prita Meier, University of Illinois assistant professor of Art History, World on the Horizon will be the first major traveling exhibition dedicated to the arts of the Swahili Coast and their historically deep, fluid, and enduring connections to eastern and central Africa and the port towns of the western Indian Ocean world. It will offer audiences an unprecedented opportunity to view over 100 artworks brought together from public and private collections from East Africa, Europe, Oman, and the United States. Scheduled to open at KAM in September 2017, the exhibition will remain on view until March 2018 and then travel to the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. Negotiations are under way with the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington D.C. as a possible third venue.