Lukasa, "the long hand", are memory devices created using carvings, beads, shells, and other objects by the Bambudye, to keep the history of the Luba People. The Luba Empire was a pre-colonial Central African state that arose in the southern Congo and developed into a highly organized society and culture by about 400 CE. ...For my ongoing series "Collective Memory," I used this framework to start a series of paintings and quilts that use fabrics, objects, and color to represent touch points for an American version of the Lukasa. To hold memories and history, I don’t want to be forgotten.

This collection is based on the idea of remnants. That connect humanity to Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Which is based on research published in 1987 that says the entire “human race” has one single common African female ancestor which scientists named Mitochondrial Eve, since mtDNA is inherited only from the mother's ovum.