Afrofuturist Intent

By the Grace of The Grand Nagus (2018)

April Bey is a contemporary black artist whose work I think we can integrate neatly into an Afrofuturism aesthetic. As a “fine artist,” her work engages the gallery and museum crowd, but the content of her work engages directly with speculative practice across mediums. One challenge for considering Afrofuturism in the arts is the simplistic intersection of blackness + science fiction (or seemingly science fiction) themes is all too often equated to Afrofuturism.

Yet, I think we can ask ourselves what marks Afrofuturist Intent in the work of a contemporary artist.

For it to be truly Afrofuturist, the liberation message must be central in my mind. The worldbuilding needs to serve some liberatory purpose to achieve the transformative outcome we associate with Afrofutuism. In her series, MADE IN SPACE, Bey creates a series of images that engage with figures entangled with speculative practice across media, but crucially, she always has a liberatory message in the work.