Water: Cleansing  2025

Collage, Mosaic, Ink, Acrylic on Wood Panel 40"x30"

Fire: Transformation, 2025

Collage, Ink, Acrylic on Wood Panel 40"x30"

Bokolo : Roots explores cultural duality, ancestral memory, and the journey of finding home within ourselves and in our roots. The exhibition unfolds through wall-hung mixed media collages, sculptural and floor-based installations, and sound--creating a space that invites reflection, remembrance, and reconnection. Inspired by Diakité’s childhood between Mali and America, Bokolo : Roots reflects on identity as fluid, inherited, and continually reimagined, offering a universal meditation on self, belonging, and navigating the ties that shape who we are.The

Installation Overview

Ludo Gameboard Floor: The gallery floor becomes a large-scale West African Ludo board, transforming the space into a symbolic landscape of cultural navigation and memory. In the 4 corners are African textile Starting Bases. It is here that each player places 4 tokens. The purpose of the game is to be the first to move all your tokens into the central Home Base, where they are safe. Players roll a die to move their tokens out of the Starting Base and along the path. Through luck and strategy, they strive to avoid being sent backward.

Two Central Dice, one marked with N’Ko numbers, the other dotted with West African textiles.

Cowrie Shell Sculptures: Sixteen hand-cast clay cowrie shells serve as game pieces, symbolizing value, trade, spiritual protection, and ancestral wisdom. Positioned on the board, they embody movement, history, and cultural resonance.

Central Water Bowl: At the heart of the Ludo board sits a large hand-sculpted clay water bowl, inviting quiet contemplation. Subtle audio of elders’ advice and stories emerge from beneath, with surrounding sand from Mali grounding the work in ancestral memory, making the bowl a ritual vessel and reflective archive.

Wall-hung Collages: A series of mixed-media collage portraits, each aligned with one of the four elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, elements that mirror the full cycle of transformation--Destruction, Cleansing, Grounding, Renewal, reflecting the journey of finding self.

N’Ko Scripture Wall: N’Ko is an alphabetic script created in 1949 as a modern writing system for Manding languages; the word ‘N’Ko’ means ‘I say.’ I use it in this installation as a guiding text,speaking to the journey of finding ‘self’ and finding ‘home’ through my mother language. The N’Ko wall functions as a spiritual textscape, inviting visitors to slow down and reflect.

A journey home to self and roots.

Air: Freedom, 2025

Collage, Ink, Acrylic on Wood Panel 40"x30"

Earth: Roots, 2025 (sold)

Collage, Ink, Acrylic on Wood Panel 40"x30"