Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara

The western Sahel—a vast region in Africa just south of the Sahara Desert that spans what is today Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and was the birthplace of a succession of influential polities. Fueled by a network of global trade routes extending across the region, the empires of Ghana (300–1200), Mali (1230–1600), Songhay (1464–1591), and Segu (1640–1861) cultivated an enormously rich material culture. Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara will be the first exhibition of its kind to trace the legacy of the mighty states the western Sahel and what they produced in the visual arts.