The exhibition features more than eighty objects, including ancestral figures, masks, ceremonial costumes, headdresses, ritual objects and reliquary guardian figures, drawn from one of the most important collections of traditional sub-Saharan African art in the United States.

Created by artists from Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Ghana, these works of art are made from wood, ivory, stone, terra cotta, beadwork and brass. Displayed thematically—with contextual and archival photographs and video—the exhibition illuminates the various ways in which objects facilitate ancestral veneration, as well as the transmission and interconnection of artistic style.