Chester Higgins, Jr.
Invoking the Spirit: Worship Traditions in the African World

The product of more than twenty-five years of travel and research by New York Times photojournalist Chester Higgins, Jr., this photography exhibition explores worship practices across ethnic, national, cultural, and religious boundaries throughout the African world and documents the vitality and diversity of the global African religious experience. The images featured in the exhibition also serve as the central theme of Higgins's book, Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa. Culled from his archive of almost a million photographs documenting the global African experience, the 95 photographs presented in Invoking the Spirit explore the myriad ways in which African peoples venerate their sacred deities, invoking their presence and spirit in their life worlds.

These photographs document the places held sacred by African peoples, in Africa and the Americas: the diverse spiritual leaders who are involved in the conduct of worship activities; the universal use of prayer as a formal means of communicating with God and the spirits; the rites, rituals, and ceremonies Africans use to pay tribute to God and invoke God's presence; and the roles of music and dance in religious services, ceremonies, and rituals.

Invoking the Spirit: Worship Traditions in the African World exhibition is organized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the New York Public Library and is sponsored by the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia.

Invoking the Spirit: Worship Traditions in the African World opened Friday, December 8, 2006. The exhibition will be on display until February 28, 2007.

Please call 804-780-9093 for hours of operation, admission rates, and general inquires.