What is The Black Speculative Arts Movement?
The BLACK SPECULATIVE ARTS MOVEMENT, or BSAM, emerged in the wake of Unveiling Visions: Alchemy of The Black Imagination the debut exhibition curated by John Jennings and Reynaldo Anderson at the Schomburg library in New York, in 2015.
It has grown into a network of creatives, intellectuals, and artists representing different positions or basis of inquiry including: Afrofuturism, Astro Blackness, Afro-Surrealism, Ethno Gothic, Black Digital Humanities, Black (Afro-future female or African Centered) Science Fiction, The Black Fantastic, Magical Realism, and The Esoteric.
Although these positions may seem incompatible, in some instances they overlap around the term speculative and design; and interact around the nexus of technology and ethics.
Black Speculative Art is a creative, aesthetic practice that integrates African diasporic worldviews with science or technology and seeks to interpret, engage, design or alter reality for the re-imagination of the past, the contested present, and to act as a catalyst for the future.
AFROFUTURISIM 2.0
Afrofuturism 2.0 is the early 21st century techno-genesis of Black Identity reflecting counter histories, hacking, and or appropriating network software, database logic, cultural analytics, deep remixability, neurosciences, enhancement and augmentation, gender, fluidity, posthuman possibility, the speculative sphere, with transdisciplinary applications, and has grown into an important diasporic technocultural Pan-African movement. It is characterized by five dimensions that include:
METAPHYSICS
AESTETICS
THEORETICAL & APPLIED SCIENCE
SOCIAL SCIENCE
PROGRAMMATIC SPACE
ASTRO-BLACKNESS
21st century manifestation of global Black “cultural vibranium” for a geopolitical world, an interstellar child of of 20th century Pan Africanism ,or as Andrew Rollins defines it as “an Afrofuturistic concept in which a person’s black state of consciousness, released from the confining crippling slave or colonial mentality, becomes aware of the multitude and varied possibilities and probabilities within the universe.”
DARK SPECULATIVE FUTURITY
The late 20th century development, emergence, and philosophical perspective of non-White people in regards to their own agency or significance in relation to humanity or other life forms. Furthermore, how they describe or forecast phenomena in terms of their cultural purpose, principles, or goals in regards to global change, technological and social acceleration, ecological processes, and interstellar aspirations.
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson serves as an Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and the Executive Director and Co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM), a network of Artists, Curators, intellectuals and Activists.
Dr. Anderson is the Co-Editor of several publications which include:
—Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness (published by Lexington books)
—Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent (published by Cedar Grove Publishing)
—The Black Speculative Art Movement: Black Futurity, Art + Design (published by Lexington books)
—Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures, special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies
—When is Wakanda: Afrofuturism and Dark Speculative Futurity Journal of Futures Studies
John Jennings
John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture.
As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, and comics and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric.
Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.
Sheree Renee Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science and Mississippi Delta conjure. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, May 2020) is her first all prose collection. She is also the author of two multigenre/hybrid collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press July 2016), longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a Publishers Weekly Starred Review and Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct January 2011). She edited the World Fantasy-winning groundbreaking black speculative fiction anthologies, Dark Matter (2000 and 2004) and is the first to introduce W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction short stories. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage, 2020). She is the Associate Editor of the historic Black arts literary journal, Obsidian: Literature & the Arts in the African Diaspora, founded in 1975 and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949. She also writes book reviews for Asimov's. She was recently honored as a 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Special Award – Professional category for contributions to the genre and is the Co-Host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony at Discon III in Washington, DC
She is a Marvel writer and contributor to the groundbreaking anthology, Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland (Feb. 2021). She lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee near a mighty river and a pyramid.
Dacia “InnerGy” Polk
Dacia Polk, better known as InnerGy, is a multi- disciplinary Creative, Director, Consultant and Event Curator.
She has served as the Webmaster and Midwest Field Coordinator for The Black Speculative Arts Movement since 2016. She is Lead Organizer of BSAM St. Louis Chapter and Deputy Assistant Director of The Black Speculative Arts Movement.
An award-winning professionally performing Poet, Actress and Model. She has curated exhibitions which have included, film, performing art, fashion, and visual art.
Digital art of her is featured in “Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent and her original art is featured in “Red Spring” one of the installments of BSAM’s online digital Arts collaboration w/ NEW YORK LIVE ARTS and Google Arts & Culture.
She is the Executive Producer of WORDUP! Open mic, a 7 year running, weekly Tuesday Night showcase of live music, poetry, and comedy supporting the creative arts community in St. Louis, MO.
She also sits on a curatorial board for the St. Louis Art Museum and is currently a WEPOWER Chisholm’s Chair Fellow.
Stacey “Black Kirby” Robinson
Stacey Robinson, also known as “Black Kirby” is a Graphic Designer and one of the leading Afrofuturist Digital Arts Creatives.
His subject matter examines the African-American experience, more specifically the future. Inspired by Michelangelo, Ernie Barnes, Charles Bibbs and Robert Rauschenberg, Stacey ventured in a different direction, examining the future. His Afro-Futurist works consist of reoccurring motifs, which are symbols of technology and rebirth. Juxtaposing flesh with mechanical objects, the works comment on newness of life beyond the struggles of the past. Currently, Stacey is preparing for graduate school. Balancing family, community activities and art events is an everyday challenge. Having achieved most of his life goals, Stacey is looking forward to an unreached goal, art professor: lecturer, and world-renowned post-modern artist.
Tim Fielder
Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
His projects, Matty’s Rocket, INFINITUM, Black Metropolis and High John Conqueror are graphic stories from his company Dieselfunk Studios.
Most recently, his work was showcased in a career retrospective exhibition at The Hammonds House Museum. The show was titled Black Metropolis: 30 Years of Afrofuturism, Comics, Music, Animation, Decapitated Chickens, Heroes, Villains, and Negroes. Very soon Tim will be devoting time the the book variant of Black Metropolis which will be his Memoirs.
He has also worked as an educator for institutions such as New York University, The School of Visual Arts, New York Film Academy and Howard University in the areas of digital animation, concept design, and illustration. Tim has also been an independent animator on his work-in-progress animated film, ‘Harbinger’.
Tim, is an accomplished portrait artist. For decades he has produced illustrations of people from all walks of life from regular folks in the community to Presidents and celebrities. Along with his twin brother Jim, created the art form called Glogging, which showcases his portraits and is implemented in their Youtube and upcoming streaming program called THE DIESELFUNK SHOW.
Lonny J Avi Brooks
Lonny Brooks is an associate professor of strategic communication and media studies at California State University, East Bay, where he has piloted the integration of futures thinking into the communication curriculum for the last 15 years. He contributes prolifically to journals, conferences, and anthologies on subjects related to Afrofuturism and forecasting.
Creative Director, Afrorithm Futures Group
Resident Afrofuturist | Co-Executive Producer, Co-Creator with Ahmed Best, Host and Co-Executive Producer, Co-Creator @ The Afrofuturist Podcast with Ahmed Best on iTunes https://www.facebook.com/theafrofuturistpodcast/ "Shifting the Lens: Democratizing, imagining anti-racist futures where Black Futures Matter"--Ahmed Best & Lonny Avi Brooks
Creative Director for California BSAM & BSAM Futures, (Black Speculative Arts Movement) Board member and organizer (Oakland), see the national and global movement at bsam-art.com
Research Affiliate, Institute For The Future
Long Now Research Fellow, Long Now Foundation
Co-Game Designer and Co-Creative Director, Afro-Rithms From The Future game | afrorithms@gmail.com
Editorial Board: Handbook of Universal Foresight: www.universalforesight.com
Dr. Lawana Richmond
Dr. LaWana Richmond could be referred to as a Black female Di Vinci or modern-day Hatshepsut (hat-SHEP-suit)
At UC San Diego she serves as the Organizational Development Manager for Transportation Services where she creates frameworks, systems, and tools to support engagement, learning, and innovation.
Co-founder and Organizer of Afrofuturism Lounge and Afrofuturism Dream Tank as well as Afro Con.
Board Member for Alliance San Diego, Detour Empowers, Edfu Foundation, and Grio'neers. Also a member of the United Nations International Civil Society Working Group for the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
She has been reading and watching science fiction and horror for more than 40 years and she still hasn’t had enough.
She is a Mother and Grandmother
Her favorite word in the dictionary is nebulous (because it describes something that can be anything).
I am because we are and because we are therefore I am from the Ubuntu people aligns and resonates with her spirit and how she moves in the world.
Quentin VerCetty founded and launched the BSAM Canada® chapter in 2016 when he organized the first conference in Toronto at OCAD University with support from Kareen Weir. He designed the BSAM Canada logo(s) and organized and coordinated conferences and summits in Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Windsor, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
Quentin VerCetty is the current registered steward of the BSAM Canada trademark and branding and tradename. BSAM Canada as an entity and artist collective, along with all its business affairs are managed through AstroSankfoa Arts Initiatives, a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization focused on supporting artists with building Afrofuturism 2.0 programmatic spaces through public art interventions and web 3 activities.
Meet the BSAM Canada at AstroSankofa Arts Initiatives - www.astrosankofa.com/ or via www.bsamcanada.com/
Zaika Dos Santos
Zaika dos Santos was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is a multi-artist, digital art curator, designer, researcher, scientist and science communicator of Speculative Movements such as Afrofuturism, African Futurism and Afropresentism, NFT and Data Science. She is a director, producer and editor of speculative fiction.
She coined the concept of Afrofuturalities in her academic research entitled 'Afrofuturism: African and Afro-descendant Art, Science, Technology and Innovation - Pedagogical Processes in STEM - Mancala Lab' which is registered in the Brazilian Unified Health System and has been a model research in the discussion of black Brazilian futures.
She is the general coordinator of the Black Speculative Arts Movement in Brazil, founder of the scientific/educational initiatives Afrofuturismo: Arte e STEM, of the artistic and educational collective Saltosoundsystem, of the multi-arts initiative Nok é Nagô, of the photographic cartographies and performance project Melanina Urbe and the collective curatorship Crypto Art Brazil.
She is a technologist in Audiovisual, Radio and TV and Web Design. Graduated in Fine Arts at Guignard – Universidade Estadual de Minas Gerais, with qualification in Screen Printing and Photography and specialist in Data Science at Digital House.
She has worked as an art educator in museum spaces such as Palácio das Artes, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil and Funarte. She worked as an Integrated Arts Instructor at SESC-MG. She was a mentor artist at the RAVC-Shared Virtual Artistic Residency of the Bienal Black Brazil Art, acted as training coordinator and shared curator in the UX Community project in partnership with Oi Futuro and the Digital Art Biennial. She is the creator of the partner program in Brazil for the Afrofuturism Festival - Carnegie Hall, 2022.
She is a researcher affiliated with the ABPN (Brazilian Association of Black Researchers), she received a scientific initiation scholarship at Instituto Sua Ciência, with her third scientific research on Afrofuturism. She was one of the science communicators / scientist of the Women in Science project – British Council 2018 – WOW – Women of the World Festival and Museu do Amanhã, where she developed the scientific divulgation 'Afrofuturism at WOW'.
Learn more about her: linktr.ee/zaikadosantos
Phillip Butler
BSAM Representative in Denver, Philip Butler is an international scholar whose work primarily focuses on the intersections of neuroscience, technology, spirituality and Blackness. He uses the wisdom of these spaces to engage in critical and constructive analysis on Black posthumanism, artificial intelligence and pluriversal future realities. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capacities.
Dr. Butler is Partner Director of Iliff’s AI Institute where he leads the 8020 project, where the institute works to change how computers see people, relate to culturally iterative languages and build the bones for a data ownership model that hopefully creates a relational framework for the way AI is made around the globe.
He is also the author of Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Spirituality and Technology and most recently the editor of Critical Black Futures: Speculative Theories and Explorations. He had published in journals such as the The Black Scholar, The Journal of Posthuman Studies and the Journal of Future Studies. He is currently working on his second monograph Still Black Posthuman: A Theory of Uncertainty and Disorder.
Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems
Principal Investigator: The Seekr Project (https://bit.ly/2LKgDy0)
Black Transhuman Liberation Theology (http://bit.ly/2th2H8J)
Tiffany E. Barber
Dr. Tiffany E. Barber is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar, curator, and critic whose writing and expert commentary has appeared in top-tier academic journals, popular media outlets, and award-winning documentaries. Her work, which spans abstraction, dance, fashion, feminism, and the ethics of representation, focuses on artists of the Black diaspora working in the United States and the broader Atlantic world. Her latest curatorial project, a virtual, multimedia exhibition for Google Arts and Culture, examines the value of Afrofuturism in times of crisis.
Dr. Barber is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Art History at the University of Delaware as well as curator-in-residence at the Delaware Contemporary. She has completed fellowships at ArtTable, the Delaware Art Museum, and the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies. During the 2021-2022 academic year, Dr. Barber will be a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute where she will be completing her first book.
Shannon Zigzaggerz Theus
BSAM LA Organizer, political activist and cosplayer!
Bryce Detroit
Bryce Detroit is the multidisciplinary Afrofuturist music artist, storyteller, activist, and pioneer of Entertainment Justice. As a cultural designer, he is a national award-winning music producer and curator. Through his social practice Bryce Detroit demonstrates the power of using music entertainment arts and native legacies to preserve, produce, and promote new Diasporic Afrikan narratives, cultural literacies, and cooperative neighborhood-based economies.
Bryce Detroit is a 2020 Harvard University Council of the Arts award recipient, 2019 New Museum Ideas Cities Fellow, a 2018 Race Forward - Rinku Sen Innovation Awardee, as well as a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge award winner. Bryce Detroit was also selected as music curator and lead performer for the 10th St Etienne International Design Biennale, representing Detroit as a UNESCO City of Design. Bryce Detroit curated and produced the entire live music programming for the event’s opening two-weeks, becoming the first person to curate live music programming in the Biennale’s twenty-year history.
A prominent community activist and advocate, Bryce Detroit grows intersectional self-determined communities as a founding member of Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, founding organizer of Detroit Community Wealth Fund, consultant at Center for Community Based Enterprises (C2BE), international delegate for East Michigan Environmental Action Council, and founding member of the art-activism collective Frontline Detroit supporting water shifts and cross-generational movement building throughout Detroit.
link: brycedetroit.com
Queen Kukoyi & Nicole Nico Taylor
Queen Kukoyi (they/she) is a Black Bajan of Igbo and Lakono Ancestry, Queer, Femme presenting, Mother, Author, Educator, Activist, Award Winning Scholar and International Artists. As a creative, Queen explores spoken word poetry, digital collage, and animations along with installation work that touch on concepts surrounding the Afrofuturistic meditative space.
Queen uses the lens of Afrofuturism 2.0 in her visual arts, mindfulness, and storytelling to facilitate discourse that decolonizes the Black identity and affirms all intersections of Blackness. She practices Afrofuturism 2.0 as an exploration and reclaiming of various black identities through multiple dimensions. Her work is a Meta-analytical Afrofuturistic convergence of meditation, music, art, and Noetic sciences through spoken word poetry, digital collage, animations, and installation work as performed and lived through intersectional Blackness. Her work allows her to speak about all intersections and amplify the voices of those who share similar experiences.
Nicole “Nico” Taylor (she/her) is a writer, scholar, dancer, cosplayer, and activist who uses feminism and critical race theory to dissect social constructions surrounding race and representation, especially as they pertain to how we make sense of the images that surround us. As a trained performer in Afro-Caribbean folk dance, Nico has participated in many events showcasing the beauty and vibrancy of Caribbean culture, which included performing in the Opening Ceremony for the Pan Am Games Toronto in 2015.
As a scholar, her interest in pop culture and designation as a proud blerd spurred the pursuit of a Master of Arts degree at Concordia University. Ultimately, Nico’s scholarly work and her engagement and examination of cosplay subculture aims to amplify visibility for cosplayers of African descent, construct space where alternative ways of imagining, creating, and being can be explored, and find ways to weave the liberation of speculative processes throughout lived experiences.
Barrington S. Edwards
Barrington Edwards has lived and worked in the city of Boston as an artist and community activist for over four decades.
He attended Hampton University in Virginia for one year then transferred to the Massachusetts College of Art where he earned
both a BFA in Communication Design and a MSAE in Art Education. He has since worked in the worlds of art and design,
education and community development. Barrington has worked with organizations in Dorchester and Roxbury for years.
Barrington worked as a member of the Visual Arts faculty at the Boston Arts Academy where he taught visual art. In addition to
teaching he was given the role of supervising practitioner for the department’s internship program. Working closely with Mass
Art and emerging teachers, Barrington was able to continue to learn and reflect on his own practice. He is a Massachusetts
State Universities Educator Alumni Award 2019 winner, a Surdna and an Expressing Boston fellow, a publisher of comics and
graphic media and works as a freelance artist and consultant. Barrington is a member of the Boston Comics Roundtable, a co-
founder of Comics in Color ( an affinity group for nerds of color enthusiastic about comics and comics culture), active with the
Design Studio for Social Intervention and the Black Speculative Arts Movement.
He currently teaches Art Education as an assistant professor art the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where he
continues to help develop young teachers. Barrington consistently works to develop his practice as an art maker and social
practice developer in concert with his teaching practice.
Diop Shabazz
BSAM representative in Senegal.
Pan-Africanist and cultural activist, financial analyst for Training, self-taught in Nutrition, Art, writing. Aspirant on the Path of Sufism
Fredy E Mena Andrade
Fredy E Mena Andrade, also known as xfry is an Afro-Colombian Software Developer focusing on Immersive Storytelling and Videogame creation.
He has been awarded by the Colombian Government for the social impact that his project has made in Chocó (Colombia). Also has been a speaker at tech conferences like (Jsconf Colombia), he made his first VR exposition (The Afroverse) in Negrofest 2020 and is a regular Afrofuturism speaker for Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and regional TV shows (Dale Play). He is the co-founder of Hackdó, the first Afro-Colombian community focused on tech topics, with more than 32 workshops and talks, 3 tech conferences, 2 bootcamps that teach others how to create web platforms, video games, and hardware with more than 70 graduated people.
Actually is focused on pushing a new wave of Black Speculative Creators in Videogames, Cinema, Writing, and more, with (BSAM Colombia.)
Ntyam Ernest Jean Blondel
BSAM representative in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He is a rapper, computer scientist and chatbot designer.
As a passionate digital artist who incorporates Afrofuturist elements into his work, he has had the privilege of working as a Wikipedia editor.
Nkolo Ntyam Blondel began his career as a rapper but soon developed a passion for computer programming . He has used his skills to create innovative chatbots that have helped improve communications and services for businesses and individuals.
He works tirelessly to encourage young people to explore their passions and pursue their dreams, regardless of their background or origin.
First Noble Institute, Gerald & Steven Vreden
BSAM representative in the Netherlands, Europe. The First Noble Institute is an award-winning foundation for Afro-Caribbean art and culture and world mythology.
The very first and one of its kind in Europe.
Besides its educational purpose, the institute is an artists' collective that blurs boundaries and challenges conventions, fostering a profound understanding of the African diaspora's rich heritage exploring world history.
Co-founding brothers Gerald and Steven Vreden, are dedicated to reshaping narratives through their art. Steven seamlessly blends his roles as a psychologist and a multidisciplinary artist, bridging art, psychology, and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Gerald, an interdisciplinary artist, author and visionary thinker dedicated to reshaping the future through creative exploration. Together they are at the forefront of a cultural and artistic renaissance.
Their crowning achievement is the creation of a new mythology: 'HIS STORY OF THE WORLD.' This groundbreaking narrative unfolds across various artistic mediums, including a novel series, graphic novels, digital & physical art exhibition and mixed reality experiences.
With 'HIS STORY OF THE WORLD' and their movement 'Shared History of the World,' our world history is reimagined through an Afrofuturistic lens, bringing African history and heritage into the present and future. Their work empowers and awakens, serving as a beacon for those seeking to elevate their frequency.
Their groundbreaking work extends into the realm of performing arts, becoming pioneers of a new form of theater—the theater of the future. By ingeniously mixing live theater with cutting-edge technologies like Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Augmented Reality (AR), they offer unprecedented immersive experiences that redefine storytelling and audience engagement. This revolutionary approach not only showcases their commitment to innovation but also illustrates their belief in the transformative power of technology in the arts.
Schetauna Powell
Schetauna Powell is the Creative Director and lead designer of Artivism Community Art, a community led production company using art to learn cultural perspectives.
https://artivismcommunityart.com
Michael Shakib Bhatch
BSAM Organizer in Cape Town, South Africa.
Michael Shakib Bhatch is a Data Thief, Sound Artist, DJ Academic and Lecturer in the Arts and Humanities Faculty at the University of the Western Cape. His art and scholarship explores both local and global sonic expressions of Afrofuturism.