Diasporic Frequencies: What the Archive Holds, What Sound Carries

Join Key Jo Lee, Chief of Curatorial Affairs & Public Programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD); Delphine Sims, Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); and Oakland- and DC-based DJ and producer Darling Cool for a conversation where photography, contemporary art, and sound come into dialogue. The program draws from , presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, featuring Ethiopian-born, Berlin-based photographer Yero Adugna Eticha’s multi-year portrait project documenting the diversity of Black life in Germany, alongside , MoAD’s group exhibition exploring Blackness through abstraction, spirituality, speculation, and expansive possibility.
Threaded throughout the conversation, Darling Cool’s musical interludes offer an embodied experience tracing Black diasporic sound from past to present — moving through memory, migration, and diasporic experience. Together, the speakers will consider how photographic archives and contemporary artistic practices open new ways of understanding Black archives, memory, and futures across place and time.
This event is presented in partnership with the Museum of African Diaspora.

Delphine Sims is an Assistant Curator in the Department of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She completed her PhD in the History of Art Department at UC Berkeley with a focus on Blackness and landscape photography in the United States. For her dissertation research Delphine was awarded predoctoral fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts within the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She previously held curatorial roles within the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Exhibitions she curated and co-curated include, (Re)Constructing History, Around Group F.64, About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging and the forthcoming Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds. In addition to exhibition catalogs, her writing can be found in Aperture, Matte magazine, and the Believer.

Key Jo Lee (@keyjolee) is chief of curatorial affairs and public programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. In this role, Lee oversees the strategic direction for the museum’s exhibitions and programs; leads globally on identifying and promoting emerging artists from the African diaspora; and works to expand MoAD’s reach and influence locally, nationally, and internationally.

She is responsible for the overall management and execution of the museum’s curatorial vision, including its exhibitions, publications, and public and educational programs, and plays an important role in the organization’s outreach, communications, and digital strategy. Lee has a master’s degree from and is PhD candidate in History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University.

Her first book, Perceptual Drift: Black Art and an Ethics of Looking, was published by Yale University Press and The Cleveland Museum of Art in January 2023.

Darling Cool is a musically eclectic DJ, producer, and event curator making fresh and meaningful waves on her bicoastal adventures living and playing between DC and Oakland. While you can catch her selecting classics, deep cuts, remixes, and edits from across various genres of music—she places a heavy emphasis on sharing soul-moving, dance-heavy beats influenced by her Nigerian and German roots, and inspired by the wide-range of house music she was raised on. She has rocked stages from San Francisco to DC to NY and beyond, playing on direct support for Jayda G, Drama, and on bills with Kaytranada, Salvatore Gannaci, MK, JYOTY, Andre Power, Snakehips, and more. Darling Cool is ½ of A Party Called Butter, creator of Black Girls Link Up, and ⅓ of the renowned Bussdown Collective.

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Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut San Francisco