Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) - San Francisco, CA Review

San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora - or MOAD - opened just a few years ago, to much fanfare. Unfortunately, they don't advertise much, and the museum is located one block behind the big commerce and heavy foot traffic of Market Street. I work close to MOAD, and have taken several opportunities to drop by.

If you're anything like me, one of the joys of visiting a museum is going to their gift shop. MOAD's gift shop is among the best museum gift shop's I've ever been to, and I've made  habit of hitting museum shops - in America's Eastern Seaboard, Canada, all through middle America and the Southern states, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Samoa, and even the Canary Islands. I can honestly say that MOAD's store is second only to NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art's store and, to be fair, MMA's store has become a huge deal. MOAD is still a local museum, but their shop is world class.

On to the real reason people go to museums, though - the exhibits. MOAD is beautifully designed - very open, with high ceilings. When you walk in, you won't feel as if you're in an old, stuffy museum, at all. It'd be a great place for a school trip. Their exhibits cover a wide range of subjects - from food, to migration, to music, to visual art...you name it. The central theme is the African Diaspora. "Diaspora" means 'the scattering of people." So, this museum isn't dedicated to the art or music or food of Africa, proper. Instead, it examines, and challenges the visitor to examine, the different traditions carried on, all over the globe, by people whose origins lie in Africa. This means MOAD features art and music from Cuba, Haiti, the American South, Canada, South America....anywhere that the people of Africa have scattered (or been forced to scatter) through the ages.

I like that the exhibits are accessible. I don't mean accessible in respect to physical disabilities...but accessible in terms of being relevant to people today, people from anywhere. When I see a painting of a king, painted in Sweden in 1256 AD, I may be able to appreciate its beauty, but it's not really relevant to me. On the other hand, when I went to MOAD's exhibit about food, and looked at a display which featured images of families from all over the world, and how much food they ate in a year...that had deep meaning to me. It spoke ot me about how different people can be, and also how alike we are. It spoke about how much we waste in the USA, and how some people have learned, from neccesity,  to be extremely good at making use of every bit of food around them...at recycling whenever possible.

I really like MOAD, and it makes me sad that few people seem to know this gorgeous museum even exists. It's really one of the best places to go in San Francisco, and it's so easy to get to. It's also within one block of about 20 great places to eat, a short walk to the beautiful Embarcadero, which is a great place for a walk, and around the corner from the peaceful and green Yerba Buena Gardens.

Next time you're in SF, check it out.