House of Aama — Artist Statement

House of Aama is an intergenerational artistic practice rooted in archival storytelling, genealogical research, and Black cultural preservation. Founded by mother-daughter duo Rebecca Henry and Akua Shabaka, the practice explores the folkways of the Black experience through narrative world-building, material culture, moving image, installation, and garments as vessels for memory and cultural transmission.

Emerging from a shared lineage of family genealogists and archivists, House of Aama is deeply informed by the stewardship of familial archives dating from the early 1800s to the present day. Working from oral histories, family photographs, keepsakes, spiritual traditions, and inherited narratives, the practice approaches archival inquiry as both preservation and creative interpretation, mining personal and collective memory to illuminate obscured histories across the African diaspora.

Central to the practice is the concept of “design memory,” a methodology shaped by sitting at the feet of elders and understanding the body itself as a living archive through which ancestral knowledge, cultural inheritance, and remembrance are carried forward. Through this framework, House of Aama examines how memory is embodied, preserved, and translated across generations through image, object, ritual, and narrative form.

Through interdisciplinary storytelling, House of Aama creates immersive visual worlds that investigate themes of migration, spirituality, fugitivity, inheritance, and Black Southern and diasporic histories. The practice expands across collections, film, installation, spatial storytelling, and collaborative cultural programming using artistic expression as a means of preservation, reflection, and social inquiry.

Rather than viewing the archive as static, House of Aama approaches memory as a living and evolving presence. The work seeks to preserve histories that exist beyond traditional institutional records while creating spaces for remembrance, cultural continuity, and reimagining across generations.