Curator

Sabrina Greig and Courtney Cintron

Contributing Artists

D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Kamau Patton, R.J. Eldridge, Darryl Terrel, Sadie Woods, Renluka Maharaj, Vikton le. Givens, Nick Mashie, Amanda McLin

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

Blackbox: An Afrofuturist Opus, is a discursive platform and group exhibition in three acts, that explores and makes visible the multidimensional ways that artists are engaging with strategies of Afrofuturism. Participating artists have contributed works across medium, constructing a landscape that evokes the sonic, visual, and literary expressions of Afrofuturism. The strategies observed and researched in preparation for the exhibition, will form the foundation for a forthcoming multi-year project: the development of an original Afrofuturist inspired opera.

”…the map of the new world is in the imagination…” —Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: Black Radical Imagination

As a cultural aesthetic and methodology, Afrofuturism resides at the crux of a cosmic intersection of critical perspectives: Afro-centricity, speculative fiction, Pan-Africanism, science fiction, technoculture, and metaphysics. Connecting the literary, musical, and visual art vanguards, Afrofuturism has been cultivated for several decades through the work of prominent practitioners: Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany, the astral jazz and funk of Sun Ra and George Clinton, and visual artworks of Aye Aton and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

By virtue of exposing and dismantling hegemonic ideology, Afrofuturists transcend the status quo and elucidate pathways to liberation. Using the following key strategies, participating artists have ignited the spirit of Afrofuturism : revisiting and revising past colonial narratives, reconceptualization of time through dialogue between the past, present and future, prefiguring future realities, invocation through ritual, song & storytelling, accessing alternate states of consciousness, and understanding race as a tool and technology to rearrange reductive, linear historical narratives. Together, these approaches act as a guiding star for the unification and empowerment of the African diaspora.

Blackbox moves beyond the walls of the white cube. Discourse began with a series of workshops for participating artists and administrators surrounding what it means to draw from strategies of Afrofuturism and how those strategies may inspire a radically reimagined form of opera.

One may wonder why opera is an appropriate expression for Afrofuturism. Every culture around the world has their own form of opera, the foundation of which is storytelling through song and music. Many cultures use song to express their religion, rites of passage, politics, and traditions. Verse (writing arranged in a metrical rhythm) is an ancient storytelling method that can be found in the Vedas, the Odyssey, and the Old Testament. Yet, in the U.S., artists of color, have historically been left out of the canon of opera in favor of those who exemplify the predominantly white Eurocentric narratives. Afrofuturism provides an opportunity to reimagine opera through a black cultural lens-that not only revisits the historical past, but also looks to the future -expanding opera’s scope both consciously and artistically.
-Courtney Cintron (MA 2017) & Sabrina Greig (MA 2016)