Akwani Nyamboli
Akwani Nyamboli is a San Francisco-based ceramic sculptor. Having grown up in a family of immigrants while attending predominantly white schools, pride in her Bafut lineage is a driving force in much of her work. Culturally significant colors, animals, symbols, and practices are present throughout her work. Conservation awareness of endangered animals native to Cameroon is most often the focus of her larger-scale sculptural works. African wild dogs, in particular, are of special importance due to their regional significance. Akwani Nyamboli attended school at the University of San Francisco, where she contributed to a mural in the American Indian Cultural District of San Francisco for Friendship House.
Manka and Britney
My thesis project is two ceramic dolls fired with organic materials representing perceptions of my own femininity as a Black woman in America and as a Bafut woman living outside of Cameroon. Manka, the Bafut Doll, has wide hips and large breasts, a soft, full stomach and gapped teeth signifying her beauty. Manka is soft and sweet looking with sturdy, capable hands and tightly coiled, coarse hair. In Bafut culture, women having features that signify health and access to abundance is seen as the height of beauty. Britney, on the other hand, is tall, muscular and lean, reflecting the perception in wider non-Black American culture. Through this lens, Blackness alone is an inherent signifier of masculinity. These features that are perceived as defining characteristics of the women’s identity have been further exaggerated in the dolls. This work pulls heavily from the artist’s lived experience in predominantly white East Texas communities and Bafut culture.