Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history and magic realism. The term was coined by American cultural critic Mark Dery in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson.
Tammy Rae Carland, is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has been published, screened, and exhibited around the world in galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and Sydney.
Ekow Eshun is a British writer, journalist, broadcaster, and curator.
The Nancy Cantor Warehouse, or simply The Warehouse, is a former storage warehouse of the Syracuse-based Dunk and Bright Furniture Company in Downtown Syracuse, New York, United States. It is owned and utilized by Syracuse University.
Paul Lewin is an artist who resides in Oakland, CA. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973 and relocated to Miami with his family when he was five.
Emily's Sassy Lime was an American punk rock group from Southern California. The group was formed in 1993 by three Asian American teenagers: sisters Wendy Yao and Amy Yao, and their friend Emily Ryan.
Faythe Levine is a photographer, director, author, artist, and prominent figure in the D.I.Y. Ethic indie craft movement. Her work is centered on community, empowerment, and documentation. She grew up in the suburbs of Seattle and has lived in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Birmingham, New Orleans, rural Middle Tennessee, and Sheboygan. She currently resides in the Hudson Valley, New York.
The Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University is the contemporary art gallery of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. A subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics, it is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less commonly for women.
Vox Populi is a nonprofit art gallery and collective in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1988, it presents experimental art and ideas via monthly shows, performances, and gallery talks. Located on North 11th Street, it is the longest running artist collective in the city.
Lorna Mills is a Canadian net.art and new media artist who is known for her digital animations, videos, and GIFs. Mills has done work in other mediums such as installations. Her work explores how "the notion of public decency is anachronistic" Her use of GIFs are gathered through the dark net which includes 4chan, pornfails, and Russian domains. She currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Skawennati is a Mohawk multimedia artist, best known for her online works as well as Machinima that explore contemporary Indigenous cultures, and what Indigenous life might look like in futures inspired by science fiction. She served as the 2019 Indigenous Knowledge Holder at McGill University. In 2011, she was awarded an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship which recognized her as one of "the best and most relevant native artists."
Jennifer Chan is a Canadian media artist, curator, and programmer based in Toronto, Ontario. She is known for work that addresses how gender and race manifest in the fields of digital and online art, using amateur aesthetics inspired by pop culture, YouTube mashups, and millennial experience.
Sylvia Grace Borda is a Canadian artist working in photography, video and emergent technologies. Borda has worked as a curator, a lecturer, a multimedia framework architect with a specialization in content arrangement (GUI) and production. Born and raised in Vancouver, Borda is currently based in Vancouver, Helsinki, and Scotland. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally.
Maayan Sheleff is an independent art curator and researcher based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her projects explore social and political issues through participatory practices, at the intersection of art and technology. Sheleff holds a Ph.D. in Practice in Curating in a joint program of the Department of Art at the University of Reading and the postgraduate program in Curating at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Pamela Rosenkranz is a Swiss multimedia artist who uses light and liquid to demonstrate her concepts along with performance, sculpture, painting, and installation art. Her work explores ideas and concepts of what it means to be human, its ideologies, emptiness and meaninglessness, as well as globalization and consumerism. She is represented by Karma International, Zurich / Los Angeles; Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; and Sprüth Magers Berlin, London and Los Angeles.
Lucy McRae is a British-born Australian science fiction artist, body architect, film maker and TED fellow. Her installations include film, photography, sculptures, and edible and wearable technology.
Cecily Nicholson is a Canadian poet, arts administrator, independent curator, and activist. Originally from Ontario, she is now based in British Columbia. As a writer and a poet, Nicholson has published collections of poetry, contributed to collected literary works, presented public lectures and readings, and collaborated with numerous community organizations. As an arts administrator, she has worked at the Surrey Art Gallery in Surrey, British Columbia, and the artist-run centre Gallery Gachet in Vancouver.
Simin Keramati is an Iranian-born Canadian multidisciplinary visual artist and activist. She is primarily known as a painter, video artist, installation artist, and filmmaker. Keramati lives in Toronto.
Alien She was an art exhibition organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon with support from Vox Populi, funded by grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia and curated by Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss, both of whom are former Riot Grrls. Alien She was the first art exhibition to examine the impact the riot grrrl musical movement had on the artists and cultural producers of today. The exhibition's title refers to a Bikini Kill song of the same name.
