Attached to the Soil was begun during my 7-month Fulbright Scholar service in South Africa in 2019, inspired by the aspirational metaphor that President Nelson Mandela shared in the first words of his 1994 Inaugural Address.  Collaborating with youth who proposed their own soil-related metaphors regarding their perception of realities in South Africa's past, present, or future, the stories of their fellow South Africans were told through portraiture and stories drawn from oral history interviews.  The 50 works have been exhibited in 6 university art galleries across South Africa, and hung for 8 months in the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Centre of Memory, Houghton, Johannesburg.  It is a model that I would like to extend not only in South Africa but in service to youth across Africa. Read more