What We Could('ve) Be(en): A Photo Study of Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural movement set on the progression of black imagination. In 1966, Star Trek appointed Communication Officer Lieutenant Uhura played by Actress Nichelle Nichols as a commander of the Starship Enterprise spacecraft who almost Quit the show after the 1st season and was convinced by Martin Luther King himself to stay on stating: "You are our image of where we're going". This was the first time we saw black people in the future on a large scale.

The term was coined by Mark Dery in 1993 but birthed in the minds of enslaved Africans who prayed for their lives and the lives of their descendants while creating stories and manifestations of what a world free of enslavement looked like. These OG Afro-futurists birthed the cultural blueprint guide that we've taken and coded through language and expression through film, music, literature, dance, technology and so much more.

The Big Question is:

How can the ideology serve as a blueprint for cultural growth?

The Issue:

Many individuals cannot see beyond their present circumstances. Black, Indigenous people have a harder time projecting imaginative realities that expands past the one we've systematically been given.

This is echoed through media and numerous movie character tropes and story arcs surrounding our experiences and how even black/indigenous writers and directors project their limitations into the characters they create themselves.

For the past couple of months I have been mapping out a summer curriculum and will be committing to a photo project study focusing on the concept of systems and how it correlates to the teachings of Afrofuturism. I will be using the data i collect to build the foundation for my photo exhibition: What We Could('ve) Be(en).

Telling the visual Stories of black expansion, and our transportation from violence and racism of Planet Earth.

Through this project I will be dissecting great questions brought up by Afrofuturist Pioneer Ytasha Womack:

• What are some of our default assumptions about the world?

• What are some of my default assumptions around how things work?

• What ideas are acceptable? What ones aren't?

• How and why are we socialized into believing these things?

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the questions and theories surrounding our conditions and how they aim to erase black imagination:

But I can't dig and create, without you.

If you would like to contribute to my photo project study, your contribution will be going toward film equipment and studio rentals, archival purchases, props and wardrobe for shoots, a new film scanner, and living support during my residency in New York.

Afrofuturism teaches us that we're allowed to have a sense of agency within our lives.

We're provided the opportunity to look at the vast wealth of knowledge and possibility contributed by people of african descent to the philosophy and sciences of art.

This is not just an artistic movement. This tool is as vital to activism as any other. A creative catalyst of opportunity and community reconstruction.

I'll end on this note:

“We see the possibilities of a society of Black [people] that is steeped in our history, but also embraces our advancement while protecting both as a means for survival. Seeing this can and has inspired more of us to invest in our communities, to continue to dominate in the STEM field and the arts, and to move forward in our quest to reach back into our communities by creating opportunities and guidance for our youth.”

• Nova Sparks, author of the Dome trilogy.

I'll be posting unique findings and updated to my process on my Process Journal IG Page: @Kinmariesudios.

Get involved, research and create your own contributions to this movement and donate if you can. Love and light to you all. See you on Saturn. Peace.