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Jeff Donaldson - 2

has influenced the curriculum.But it has not been an overt kind of influence, nor has xxan attempt been made to do so.But the students seem to be responding to the kinds of ideas that the Africobra artists were also responding to and so students made certain demands about curriculum changes which were made by the faculty; new programs were introduced, new ideas about the types of exhibitions to have, number of exhibitions to have, kinds of people we should have as artists in residence; all these were considerations that were arrived at not only by the faculty that basically came to teach here because they shared some of the concepts that we believe in.

Q: I was really struck - I've just read a new biography of Imamu Amiri Beraka by a guy named Sollers xxd...and I was really struck by the close similarities between the esthetic ideas that Baraka was expressing in the late 60s, early 70s, and that you yourself were expressing. In particular, in the response to the Whitney Show, 1971 I think, Baraka had an article in which he talked about the role of art and at just about the same time I think, you had an article in Black World, and its the same thing, it seems to me. The ideas about what art should do in the broader world outside of just the community of painters seems to be very,very close.

A: Yes, I would say that the cultural nationalism position espoused by Baraka was one that was very close to and was very influential in the development of our philosophy. There's no question about that. I daresay that it would be quite different today. But the Africobra orientation has moved not really much farther away from where it actually started, except that the concerns were more on the national  or regional or provincial basis in the 60s and with our expanded information and expanded experience with Africans, particularly African artists, we saw that we were part of a larger group and we have made an overt attempt to reinforce those ties that we made with those artists and have tried to establish some vital links whereby we might communicate our technical probelsm as well as others that we might share. And this was brought to a high point as FESTAC, (158) which showed the work of some 100 artist from this country in a 30 day-long event in Lagos. At the same time artists from all over the rest of the 3rd World were showing their work. And so not only did you have an exhibition in which art was integrated from some 75 of those 100 artists were at the festival, and they were able to talk and communicate with artists from other parts of the world. And to visit shrines of black creative activities such as Benin and Ife. I would think that that event did as much as any event could possibly do to accelerate development of a Pan-Africanist form of artistic expression, one that I call Afro-diaspora because it has definitive perhaps equally weighted influences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Q: That's one of the things that has excited me, is that is not a one-way borrowing, nor does it appear to be a self-conscious evocation of something thin an artificial manner, but that there is cross-fertilization.... I see it as a possible antidote for a rather stale artist ic tradition, capital T,(192) which exists in the cultural capitals. The dominant culture needs an infusion of new esthetic ideas. I see that as existing in the Pan-African (200) or Neo-African modes.