The FIFA World Cup may be over, but the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is inviting visitors to look beyond the pitch and into the histories that connect Black communities across continents.
Now on view at MoCADA’s expanded home in the L10 Arts & Cultural Center, Pitch Black: Haiti and Congo Revisited examines a pivotal moment in football history: 1974, when Haiti and Zaire — now the Democratic Republic of Congo — qualified for the FIFA World Cup. Haiti became the first Caribbean nation to quality under the tournament's revised qualification format, and Zaire the first sub-Saharan African nation to compete.
Running through Oct. 11, the exhibition is presented alongside Haitian artist Francks F. Deceus’s outdoor installation Carib-Import #1, on view at the MoCADA Ubuntu Botanical Garden through April 25, 2027. Together, the exhibitions use football as an entry point into broader questions of migration, liberation and political identity—subjects that have shaped MoCADA’s work since its founding in Brooklyn more than two decades ago.
According to MoCADA Executive Director and Chief Curator Amy Andrieux, the exhibition began with a simple question: How could MoCADA participate in the global conversation surrounding the World Cup while remaining true to its mission?
“We couldn’t just do a pop-up about soccer,” Andrieux said. “We wanted to continue connecting the dots between the diaspora.”
Entering Pitch Black, visitors are immediately drawn into the energy surrounding international football while encountering the political histories unfolding beyond the stadium. Rather than presenting the World Cup as a singular moment of celebration, the exhibition examines how national pride, athletic achievement, and Black liberation existed alongside political repression and authoritarian rule.
That year, Haiti competed under the rule of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s successor, Jean-Claude Duvalier, while Zaire was governed by Mobutu Sese Seko, whose regime used nationalism and cultural identity as tools of political power.
“I wanted it to be a reflection point,” Andrieux said. “Not just a celebration of our achievements at the World Cup, but a way to ask what was happening in those countries at the same time—celebrating Black nationhood and Black genius while living under dictatorship. What can we learn from that now?”
A few blocks away at the MoCADA Ubuntu Botanical Garden, Deceus's exhibition on the museum's Greg Tate Art Wall explores the emotional complexities of migration and the experience of remaining connected to one's homeland while building a life elsewhere.
Andrieux said the installation resonated because it reflects “the relationship of what it means to be an immigrant in America—to be detached from home but still connected,” a theme that carries particular urgency amid ongoing debates surrounding Haitian immigration and Temporary Protected Status.
Although presented across two different spaces, Andrieux sees the exhibitions as part of one larger conversation about connection, memory and shared histories.
“I want us to understand how we are all connected,” she said. “Our stories are connected. Our cultures may be different in nuanced ways, but we’re rooted in the same beauty, the same politics and the same history.”
For MoCADA, that connection has always been central to its work. As the institution continues expanding its platforms for storytelling and cultural exchange, its exhibitions remain rooted in the belief that art can preserve collective memory while creating space to examine the forces shaping the present.
“We are one people,” Andrieux said. “MoCADA will always be an organization that is not afraid to speak.”
