Folklorist of the Month - Diana Baird N'Diaye

By: Lamont Jack Pearley

On this episode, I speak with Dr. Diana Baird N'Diaye, The African American Folklorist of the Month! Dr. Diane Baird N’Diaye is an interdisciplinary Visual artist/maker and cultural scholar. N’Diaye developed and headed the African American Crafts Initiative, is the principal investigator and Curator of the Will to Adorn: African American Dress and the Aesthetics of Identity, was awarded the Smithsonian Secretary's Research Prize for Curatorial Conversations: Cultural Representation at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival; and currently holds the position as Senior Folklife Curator, Cultural Specialist, Directs African American Craft Initiative at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage.  She’s written many pieces and engages directly with traditional arts.

Dr. N’Diaye fancies herself a maker, creating everything from quilts to necklaces, clothing, bags, and everything in between. As a maker, her focus is to provoke conversations and contemplations around identity, heritage, healing, and the social terrain in those of the diaspora live.  Utilizing her creativity as an anthropologist, Diane’s travel and research permeate through her work. N’Diaye says, “ My art is shaped by my identities as a citizen of global Africa and 2nd generation transnational.”

As the African American Folklorist of the Month, I had the honor to sit with Dr. N’Diaye and discuss her journey, works, and thoughts on Black in the academic and independent Folklore space.