Museum brings people together: residents can travel to Africa without leaving Lincoln

A textured painting of a lion at sunset, by Greg Sparling, hangs on a wall at the Midwestern African Museum of Art. (Photo by Katie Knight)
A textured painting of a lion at sunset, by Greg Sparling, hangs on a wall at the Midwestern African Museum of Art. (Photo by Katie Knight)

by Katie Knight

When Seth Mock was growing up in Kenya’s largest refugee camp, he was surrounded by art.

He saw paintings, sculptures, sketches awash with bright reds, yellows and blues. The African culture was rich and is something that has never left him.

These experiences from Mock’s childhood followed him to the United States and to Nebraska, when he moved to Lincoln. Just a few years later, he would open the first African museum in the Midwest, the first museum founded by refugees in the United States — the Midwestern African Museum of Art (MAMA).


Seth Mock founded the Midwestern African Museum of Art to share African culture, build community and help Lincoln’s growing refugee population. Courtesy photo

Founded in October 2016, MAMA is a resource center dedicated to displaying rich African art. From elaborate wooden carvings to traditional African dresses, MAMA’s walls are lined with work that gives a Nebraskan who has never left the country an idea of what Africa is like.

“It’s something we see as an opportunity for people to travel to Africa without a passport,” Mock said.

But art isn’t MAMA’s only focus — Mock says the museum uses art to further its other main purposes: community, culture and working with Lincoln’s growing refugee population.

MAMA leases some of its space out to various tenants — Jean-Aimé Shabanza Mbiya Bondo, the executive director of International American Relief Society, rents out space, and another tenant uses his office to help refugees with their taxes at a discounted rate. Sometime this month, an Ethiopian restaurant, Ajora Falls, will open a space on MAMA’s first floor, where it will serve both African coffee and Ethiopian cuisine.

MAMA also hosts reading and parenting classes for the community, and its educational outreach reaches from young school age children to students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“There is an educational aspect that MAMA brings to the city which is extremely important,” Mock said. “We think the best and fastest way we can give back is to our children and our youth.”

*This story is the first part of a multimedia project led by CoJMC students in the Nebraska Mosaic class. To view the complete project, photos and videos, visit https://nebraskamosaic.atavist.com/painting-a-new-picture.