“My nomination is even more valuable to me that you always had the wisdom not to establish racial, ethnical or religious quotas to be admitted among you”. Unanimously elected in 2013, the eighty-years-old Senegalese sculptor follows Léopold Sédar Senghor’s footsteps, elected at the French Academy thirty years earlier, and to whom he paid tribute during his enthronement. This event will surely and durably shake-up the African Diaspora: after the constant search for role models, the awareness of a possible future. Oneself.”
Tag: Ambivalences / Intersections
IDENTITIES / PORTRAITS
Neals Niat : Follow The Story Between The Lines…
“I have been drawing since I was little, it has always been a passion, which since recent years has become something more concrete. As my works are mostly inspired by my childhood in Cameroon and the world surrounding me, it has always seemed obvious to work in black and white, pretty much like VHS : I call it the “Monochromatic Visual Metaphor”. I want to share my cultural wealth through my work in a playful way . “Neals
Art by Krigga : Balance your equations
“My interest in collage really came to be when I immersed myself in studying alchemy. The idea of taking prima materia and transmuting it into something brand new grabbed me. I was always captivated by the collage aesthetic, and it was a natural talent for me. What really moved me was the lack of black faces and bodies in this particular expression. ” Krigga
Afrofuturism: Constructing Extraterrestrial Blackness
January the 9th, Black(s) to the Future’s team was invited by Leopold Lambert, for ARCHIPELAGO (The Funambulist’s Magazine Podcast), to share some thoughts on Afrofuturism.
About cultural appropriation : facts and circumstances
« A Japanese teen wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a big American company is not the same as Madonna sporting a bindi as part of her latest reinvention. The difference is history and power. Colonization has made Western Anglo culture supreme – powerful and coveted. It is understood in its diversity and nuance as other cultures can only hope to be. Ignorance of culture that is a burden to Asians, African, and indigenous peoples, is unknown to most European descendants or at least lacks the same negative impact. » Tamara Winfrey Harris
Sun Ra – Janelle Monae : discrete cameos
One Google research is enough to acknowledge the distinguished Sun Ra and the archandroid Janelle Monae as obvious flagships of afrofuturism, cyber-intertwined in a movement they don’t claim to be actually part of. The first returned to the far-off Saturn planet in 1993 and the latter spans space and time in an alternative reality.
“The African man entered the future”
On wednesday the 16th of December, Black(s) to the Future team was invited by the French radio France Culture to participate to the the show : “Les Nouvelles Vagues” with music artist Mélissa Laveaux.
What happened to diversity in fashion since “The Battle of Versailles” ?
The Battle of Versailles, coined by former WWD publisher John Fairchild, served as the beginning of American fashion as we know it today and became the catalyst for diverse runways that lasted nearly a decade. “[Designers] wanted entertainment and black models were associated with being able to really express themselves on the runway.” However, by the 1980s, “once entertainment was devalued, black models became less in demand.”
Unspoken Afrofuturists
In ‘The Shadows Took Shape’ exhibition catalog essay, Alondra Nelson wrote that “in the zeal for a liberatory detour, Afrofuturism [has come] to be more likely embodied by Sun Ra, George Clinton, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ralph Ellison, and ‘The Brother from Another Planet’” than by women like LaBelle, Ellen Gallagher, Laila Ali, Jewelle Gomez, and Nyota Uhura. [While] queerness (in the broadest sense) of past-future visionaries such as Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, and Nalo Hopkinson too often goes unappreciated as a central feature of black futurist aesthetics.
Anonymous Afrofuturists
“For better or for worse, I am often spoken of as the first African-American science fiction writer. But [among] the ranks of what is often referred to as proto-science fiction, there are a number of black writers. [M. P. Shiel, Martin Delany, Sutton E. Griggs, Edward Johnson…] I believe I first heard Harlan Ellison make the point that we know of dozens upon dozens of early pulp writers only as names […] we simply have no way of knowing [how many] were not blacks, Hispanics, women, native Americans, Asians, or whatever. Writing is like that.” Samuel R. Delany
Alva Bernadine : “I am one man subculture”
Alva Bernadine is a mysterious photographer for some, a fetichist for others… The artist from Grenada broke the feminine figure that we usually see in art and made his way into pop culture. Artists like Azealia Banks copy his work in her video «Yung Rapunxel »
Mark Dery (1/4) – portrait
Critic, essayist, book author, lecturer, journalist, Newyorker…, Mark Dery has surely been a trend observer – and eventually whistle blower – of urban life and techno culture for the past twenty years. We also owe him the term afrofuturism, which he first coined in an article entitled “Black to the future” (named after alternative hip hop musician and rapper Def Jef’s track).