Shani Crowe: Red, Black, and Green

Paying tribute to the Pan-African flag, Chicago-based artist Shani Crowe widens the aperture of the tri-colored symbol of African diasporan identity and liberation. Using textured hair and ornaments as central modalities, while featuring a collection of photographic portraiture, yarn tapestry, beading, and performance, this exhibition transforms Black radical imagination into an inclusive affirmation for the collective beyond its traditional conservative center.

First created in 1920 by Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), this flag was originally called the Negro flag, and later during the 1960s Civil Rights movement became affectionately known as the Black Liberation flag. It offers three bold stripes in stark primary colors: Red representing the life source and blood shed in the ongoing struggle for Black liberation; Black reflecting our diasporan community united; and Green symbolizing the natural wealth of Africa, the Motherland.

Shani Crowe: Red, Black, and Green was first presented at The August Wilson African American Cultural Center in 2022 via invitation by Janice Bond, which was followed by a viewing of select art from this series during Miami Art Week in 2025. This expanded presentation, just in time for the 100th anniversary of Black History month, marks Crowe’s first solo exhibition at MoCADA, and her second showing since the public art debut of her BRAIDS series a decade ago in 2016.

This exhibition was made possible thanks to generous support from the NYC Coalition of Theaters of Color in collaboration with NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and NYC Council.

(from top of page, main image)

SIS FLAG
Shani Crowe
2022
Archival Ink on German etching paper

(above, left)

USA: United States of Africa
Shani Crowe
2022
Acrylic yarn, Wood, 59×58 inches

(right, above)

RBGoals
Shani Crowe
2022
Plastic Pony Beads, Nylon Cord, Cowrie Shells, and Aerosol on Vintage Steel Backboard
54×84 inches

Listen to the soundtrack from the exhibition at home. Curated by Run P. in collaboration with Shani Crowe.

TRACKLIST

Shani Crowe is an interdisciplinary artist who received her BFA in film production from Howard University’s John H. Johnson School of Communications in 2011. Her work centers on cultural coiffure, adornment and beauty ritual, as they relate to the diasporic African, and how these practices function as tools to foster connectivity. She is most known for creating intricate corn-rowed hairstyles, then capturing them as large photographic portraits.

Shani’s is part of the ensemble selected to represent the US in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, her work and performances have been featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Broad in Los Angeles, on Saturday Night Live in collaboration with Solange Knowles, the Museum of Contemporary African and Diasporan Art (MoCADA), in Brooklyn, NY, the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, in Grand Rapids, MI, Columbia University, and Soho House Chicago. She lives and works on Chicago’s south side.

Click the photos below to learn more or to buy from MoCADA’s bookstore.

For deeper exploration, visit Brooklyn Public Library for Art and Culture at 10 Lafayette Avenue for a curated collection of reference materials that are relevant to the show’s themes.