Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

Sika Foyer is a Togolese-American, multidisciplinary research-based and conceptual artist who explores the aesthetic abstraction in her West African Oral tradition, rite of passage ceremonies, and music and dance rituals, to create narratives that examine all forms of social injustice. Foyer exposes the process of becoming through iconographic symbols with tireless gestural motions and micro repetitive layering, which she refers to as the Trickster’s materiality of wrapping, and its cross-cultural rituals. She examines the powerful impact of such materiality of wrapping through body movements and sounds to formulate a new language made of sacred geometric figures and forms, signs and symbols echoing those evidenced in ancient pictographic languages such as Adinkra, Nsibidi and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Foyer was first introduced to drawing and fabric/textile design at age 8 by her mother. With a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics and a Master’s of Science in Urban Studies, Foyer pursued a career in corporate finance and economic development while developing her artistic practice until 2017 when she returned to academia to complete her M.F.A. in Visual Arts at Lesley University, College of Art + Design in Cambridge, MA. Hence, her art practice is both a socio-economic and a cultural reflection on who and what we become, weaving and weighing in the yesterday, today and the future of our lives.

Foyer’s artworks have been shown internationally and nationally in museums, galleries and alternative art spaces. Some of Foyer’s works are in private collections.