Fatimah Tuggar: Home's Horizons

The Davis Museum at Wellesley College presents Fatimah Tuggar: Home’s Horizons, a major solo exhibition that investigates history, technology, and the home. A multimedia artist born in Nigeria in 1967 and currently based in Kansas City, Missouri, Tuggar has taught and exhibited around the world. Curated by Assistant Curator Amanda Gilvin, this exhibition featuring sculpture, photo-montage, video, and augmented reality (AR) highlights Tuggar’s interrogation of the systems underlying human interactions with both high-tech gadgets and handmade crafts. She seeks to promote social justice by implicating everyone in these systems, while playfully proposing new ways of seeing and making.

After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1992, she completed her MFA in sculpture at Yale University in 1995. She has exhibited internationally since the 1990s, with previous solo exhibitions in New York, New York; Lisbon, Portugal; Geneva, Switzerland; Durham, North Carolina, and Newark, Delaware. An accomplished educator, Tuggar has taught numerous students who have gone on to successful careers in art, technology, and education in the United States and Canada. A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, her many other awards include Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award, a W.A. Mellon Research Fellowship, a Prix Special du Jury at the Rencontres de Bamako photography biennial, and a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Umbria, Italy.

The Davis has commissioned the new installation Deep Blue Wells, a multimedia interactive work combining textiles, sculptures, video, and AR. Engaging with the indigo dye wells of Kano, Nigeria, the artwork pushes at the limits of current digital technologies while honoring expert artisanal work. The installation has been developed in collaboration with the cutting-edge software development firm BrickSimple LLC.

The first monographic catalogue on Tuggar’s work accompanies this exhibition on one of the most original, incisive conceptual artists of the digital age. Published and distributed by Hirmer Publishers and designed by the award-winning Stoltze Design, the volume includes a foreword by Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director Lisa Fischman, an introductory essay by exhibition curator Amanda Gilvin, an interview with the artist, and essays by Delinda Collier, Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Nicole Fleetwood, Associate Professor of American Studies and Art History at Rutgers University, and Jennifer Bajorek, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Hampshire College. The essays address Tuggar’s oeuvre within the confluence of the histories of conceptual, tech, feminist, and African art.

Major funding for the exhibition’s development and realization was provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with additional support from BrickSimple LLC. Generous support for the exhibition and publication was provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis, the Kathryn Wasserman Davis ’28 Fund for World Cultures and Leadership, the Mildred Cooper Glimcher ’61 Endowed Fund, the E. Franklin Robbins Art Museum Fund, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center Endowed Fund, the Anonymous '70 Endowed Davis Museum Program Fund, the Judith Blough Wentz '57 Museum Programs Fund, and the Constance Rhind Robey ‘81 Fund for Museum Exhibitions.