Baker Artist Portfolios

Kibibi Ajanku makes and presents ethnically charged art. Her passion embodies the thrust of Africa as her Motherland. Kibibi’s creativity is her life's journey's ongoing and ever-evolving effort. Her work is eclectic and innovative. It is ancient while at the same time new-world and always changing. Ajanku’s endeavors include but are not limited to, contemporary art and artifacts, performance art, and visual art. Her artistry is layered with, and entrenched in indigenous folkways. Her work embodies research, identity, and the gathering of elements of African retention, in hopes of evoking intuitive memories that reach back into ancestral histories and stories that impact the here and the now. 

Kibibi Ajanku is known broadly as the Founder of the Baltimore-based Sankofa Dance Theater. The company features elements of the distant past, existing present, and imagined future, all drenched in the traditions of the historical Mali Dynasty. Under Ajanku’s direction, the group has conveyed new-world costuming, choreography, and texture on the shoulders of the old-world authentic traditions of Africa. Since 1989, Ajanku’s major projects have included visual, as well as performance art and have been artistically curated to include costuming, historical artifacts, and contemporary works of art, providing each audience with an experience that is an informative journey to the exotic places. Her work has been presented at the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Walters Art Museum, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Museum, Charleston City Gallery, City Lore Gallery, and more. It includes her legacy as a dancer as well as the creative work of designing, building, and making costumes, stage wear, and accoutrements. The work embodies a broad skill base and covers techniques to include, but not limited to, machine sewing, hand sewing, embroidery, beadwork, adire dye resist technique, batik, macramé, crochet, appliqué, mola work, adinkra print, dye making, quilt making, and clothing fabrication. This effort has required the acquisition of information, materials, supplies, artifacts, and details from indigenous locations in West Africa, South Africa, the Caribbean, and certain American villages.

Ajanku’s passion for art began early. She was nurtured by “grandma’s hands” as she sat at the knees of a quilt making maternal grandmother and soon followed on the heels of fashion forward seamstress aunts. This fueled an artistic journey as an exploration and execution of an indigenous aesthetic. Ajanku is empowered by international training and workshops: adire fabric design in Osogbo, Nigeria; tapestries in Theis, Senegal; adinkra fabric printing and kente weaving in Kumasi, Ghana; mud cloth acquisitions from the Mali railway; embroidery work in Medina, Senegal; and Orisha attire in Havana, Cuba. Each of nine trips to Africa have included fabric and fibers. Ajanku has traveled the African diaspora to study, teach and perform with many masters. Kibibi Ajanku attended Morgan State University, received an MFA in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art, is a Professor for the Fine Arts Department at Coppin State University, and is the Curator for the Bearman Gallery at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Museum. Ajanku believes that when presented properly, art is the perfect vehicle to move forward into greater intercultural awareness for the global community.