Sana Musasama

HISTORY

Sana Musasama recieved her BA from City College of New York, and then her MFA at Alfred University. During her time studying art she found an interest in Mende pottery and studied it in Sierra Leone between 1974-1975. Sana would eventually go on to explore many other cultures in places such as Japan, China, South America, and Cambodia. Her travels led her to an interest in tribal adornment rituals. The experience Sana gained in these places caused her to challenge practices such as rite of passage rituals, chastity of females, and purification of the female body. Sana has worked with Together1Heart for the last thirteen years in Cambodia in an effort to aide women who have been victim to human trafficking. Her continuous work in her studies have allowed her to become an associate adjunct professor at Hunter College, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and an instructor at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning where she is currently teaching.

Artistry

One of Sana Musasama’s more known art exhibits is ironically,“ The Unknown/ The Unnamed”. This exhibit manifests the suffering of those who can’t speak up about what has happened to them, mostly women. She has sculptures of clitoridectomies or female circumcisions to demonstrate the objection of this primordial yet horrid surgery and the abuse of women all over the world. These surgeries were used to keep young girls and women pure and to restrict any sexual activity. It was also used to keep females from participating in masturbation and lesbianism. It was believed that this surgery was used to help women rather than hurt them. One of her sculptures is named,” Inner Beauty/Outer Anguish”. It is a model of a vulva which is the outer part of female genitalia literally being closed up. Sana Musasama’s pieces in this specific collection not only go against the mutilation of female genitalia but also to portray to women all over the world to not be afraid to freely express themselves through their own image and body.

Present Time

Sana Musasama is sixty three years old, and currently lives in New York, New York. She has a 3.3/5 rating on Rate My Professor, and teaches at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. While also teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She participates in selling handmade pinafores and aprons on etsy as a way to strengthen women wise communities in Cambodia and U.S. Sana has art in the collections of The Hood Museum of Art, NH, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, China, and The Museum of Arts and Design, New York.

Personal Life/Career

Sana Musasama is an incredibly talented ceramic artist. She felt the sculptures she created were a reflection of her unrelenting interest in and keen sensitivity to the human condition worldwide that she has witnessed as it played out in her own life experiences. She makes these sculptures by drawing on her own traumatizing experiences like the 9/11 attack for example. The powers of her new sculptures forms from a selection of iconic elements and the sense of reverence she achieves. Sana essentially specialized ceramics.

Exhibitions/Publication of Art

She has been included in numerous one-person and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Paris. Sana has taught and lectured on ceramics throughout the world, including Vietnam, Thailand, South India, West Africa, France, Netherlands, Japan, China, and Costa Rica. Her work is represented in many pubic collections, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the European Ceramic Center, Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. Sana has on exhibit over two dozen painted and glazed terracotta forms, displayed as "wall mounted pieces." Sana Musasama's impulses told her to explore the world. To go outside of her boundaries/bondage. For the past twenty-five years in her work and travels, she has exposed the unexposed. In her work she has spiritually and physically placed a piece of her soul and the landscape it has covered. Her travels have transformed her, as well as her approach to clay. Realizing that clay is universal, she believes that there is no dichotomy between her life and her work.