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, and can also be found in music.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States. As an independent and non-collecting art museum, it exhibits the work of local, national, and international contemporary artists. Until May 2015, the museum was based at the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. In May 2016, the museum announced an official name change to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and its relocation to Los Angeles's Downtown Arts District. The museum reopened to the public in September 2017.
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.
Eleanor Bond is a Canadian multimedia artist and art educator who is best known for reworking the Canadian landscape tradition using a new ecological awareness.
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.
Braden King is a New York–based filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. His feature film, Here (2011), starring Ben Foster and Lubna Azabal, premiered at the 2011 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals and was distributed theatrically by Strand Releasing in 2012. A multimedia installation version of the project, Here [ The Story Sleeps ], premiered at The Museum of Modern Art in 2010 and toured internationally with live soundtrack accompaniment by composer Michael Krassner and Boxhead Ensemble. King's previous work includes the feature film Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks It's Back, the award-winning short film Home Movie and music videos for Glen Hansard, Sparklehorse, Sonic Youth, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Dirty Three.
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.
Desirée Holman (born 1974) is an American artist who is based in the Bay Area, California.
Martine Syms is an American artist residing in Los Angeles, specializing in various mediums including publishing, video, installation, and performance. Her artistic endeavors revolve around themes of identity, particularly the representation of the self, with a focus on subjects like feminism and black culture. Syms frequently employs humor and social commentary as vehicles for exploration within her work. In 2007, she introduced the term "Conceptual Entrepreneur" to describe her artistic approach.
Skawennati is a First Nations (Kahnawakeronon) 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."
Elena Manferdini is an Italian architect based in Venice, California, where she is the principal and owner of Atelier Manferdini. She is the Graduate Programs Chair at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). She has over fifteen years of professional experience that span across architecture, art, design, and education.
Ana Prvacki is a conceptual performance and installation artist who has exhibited internationally. She is known for exploring social interactions in her work and using music to express core ideas such as eroticism.
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.
Beatriz Cortez is a Los Angeles–based artist and scholar from El Salvador. In 2017, Cortez was featured in a science fiction-themed exhibit at University of California, Riverside, and in 2018, her work was shown in the Made in L.A. group artist exhibition at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University. She also earned an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts. Cortez currently teaches in the Central American Studies department at California State University, Northridge. According to Cortez, her work explores "simultaneity, life in different temporalities and different versions of modernity, particularly in relation to memory and loss in the aftermath of war and the experience of migration". Cortez has received the 2018 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, the 2017 Artist Community Engagement Grant, and the 2016 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists. Beatriz Cortez is represented by Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles.
Meg Onli is an African-American art curator and writer. She is currently the Andrea B. Laporte Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her curatorial work primarily revolves around the black experience, language, and constructions of power and space. Her writing has been published in Art21, Daily Serving, and Art Papers. In September 2022, it was announced that Onli would co-curate the 2024 Whitney Biennial with Chrissie Iles.
Pearl C. Hsiung is a Taiwan-born American multi-media artist based in Los Angeles.
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.
Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is an American contemporary art museum that opened in October 2022, and is located in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Admission is free.
