At Museo Afro Casa Silvana, the Afro comb emerges as an intimate object, cultural archive and enduring symbol of Black identity.
18 August 2026
This August, Museo Afro Casa Silvana (MACAS) in Humacao, Puerto Rico, turns its attention to an object both deeply personal and profoundly political. ‘The Afro Comb: A History of Identity and Resistance’ brings together more than forty combs to trace histories of beauty, belonging, ancestry and self-determination across the African diaspora.
Opening on 22 August in recognition of the International Day for People of African Descent, the exhibition includes combs associated with Baule, Gogo, Ashanti, Luba, Swahili, Bamum, Chokwe and Bemba communities, alongside photographs, stamps, books and postcards. Among its defining objects is the iconic Black Fist Comb, patented in the United States in 1976 and inseparable from the visual language of Black Power and Black is Beautiful.
Curated by Edwin Velázquez Collazo with Joyce De Jesús Martínez, the exhibition approaches the comb not simply as a grooming tool, but as an intimate repository of memory, status and cultural continuity.
This exhibition is on view at Museo Afro Casa Silvana in Puerto Rico, from 22 August until 14 November 2026.
