Harvard Business School today announced the addition of a new sculpture to its campus, Sentinel (Mami Wata) by artist Simone Leigh, as part of the school’s ongoing outdoor contemporary art program. This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of Bridgitt (MBA 1986) and Bruce Evans (MBA 1986) and through the establishment of the Bridgitt and Bruce Evans Contemporary Art Fund at Harvard Business School. Sentinel (Mami Wata)) It will be transferred to the School until 2027.
Originally commissioned for the Prospect.5 exhibition in New Orleans, Leigh’s 2020-21 bronze sculpture Sentinel (Mami Wata) is a thought-provoking work on the way African cultural symbols traverse the African diaspora, changing and metamorphosing as they intersect with local traditions. Leigh describes the sculpture as “my interpretation of a West African water spirit, a deity who has destructive powers as well as creative and generative ones.” The work is inspired by the figure of Mami Wata, an animist deity celebrated throughout Africa and the African Diaspora, including the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Mami Wata expresses herself in unique ways and goes by different names in various cultures throughout the diaspora, as syncretic religious contexts have fused her personality with Christian saints or indigenous spiritual figures. However, the essence of her as a seductive water spirit lives on across all geographies. Depictions of Mami Wata often take the form of a mermaid or snake charmer, an amphibious corporeality that emphasizes the tense relationship between people of African descent and water after the transatlantic slave trade.
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