On Friday, May 19, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined Laurie Cumbo, founder and executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, at the new Fort Greene cultural institution’s ribbon-cutting and grand opening.

“We speak so many languages in Brooklyn, but art offers us new and always evolving ways to communicate,” said Borough President Markowitz. “I want to commend Laurie Cumbo for recognizing that Brooklyn is not only the creative capital of New York City — and, I believe, all of America — but that Brooklyn is also the thriving epicenter of African-American and Caribbean-American life in this city and nation.”

Founded in 1999 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, MoCADA was originally housed on the fourth floor of a building on Fulton Street owned by the Bridge Street AWME Church. The museum now occupies approximately 1,700 square feet on the ground floor of the James E. Davis 80 Arts Building in the BAM Cultural District.

Laurie Cumbo conceived of the project nearly a decade ago, envisioning a place where artists of African descent could exhibit their work. The mission of MoCADA is to reach people who traditionally do not go to museums by providing exhibitions that give them a voice.