Afrofuturism and Beyond: Panel Discussion
February 19, 6:00pm, Gallery Theater (rescheduled)
This panel considers Afrofuturism, a vibrant genre of science fiction represented in art, literature, film, and music in conjunction with our special exhibition, “Afrotechtopia.” Panelists include Dawn Lundy Martin of the University of Pittsburgh, Delinda Collier, of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, artist and curator Ingrid LaFleur, and Nikki Young of Bucknell as moderator. A reception follows the talk.
About the Panelists
Dawn Lundy Martin is the author of A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering (University of Georgia Press 2007), winner of the Cave Canem Prize. Martin is also at work with Erica Hunt on an anthology of experimental writing by black women in North America and the Caribbean (Kore Press 2015). She has written a libretto for a video installation opera that has been chosen for the 2014 Whitney Biennial and is a co-founder of the Black Took Collective, a performance group of experimental black poets. An associate professor of English in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh, Martin lives in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and East Hampton, New York.
Delinda Collier is Assistant Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches courses on African art, the History of New Media in Africa, and the Cold War and related issues of global networks. Her forthcoming book, The Africa Within the Medium, applies her theories of media and colonialism to the case of Angola during the mid to late twentieth century. In recent work, she has read movements like Afrofuturism in terms of media history and theory, seeking to expand the more common cultural studies approach.
Detroit native Ingrid LaFleur is a cultural producer, arts advocate and director of the art advisory firm Maison LaFleur. For the past 15 years Ingrid has developed and managed art exhibitions and projects nationally and internationally with the curatorial focus on contemporary art from Africa and the Diaspora. Ingrid’s current project is AFROTOPIA, which uses the arts movement Afrofuturism as inspiration to re-imagine the city of Detroit. AFROTOPIA is a multifaceted project that uncovers the surreal and futurist embedded within Detroit’s Black cultural legacy.