D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem

Last updated
D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Conceptual artist, professor

D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem is an afro-futurist artist, writer, and educator. She is an adjunct assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Low-Residency MFA Program; and founder of Denenge Design. [1] Her work bridges the disciplines of design, ritual, and ecology. [2] Duyst-Akpem describes her work thus: "As a scholar and practitioner, I utilize the teaching of Afro-Futurism as a methodology of (Black) liberation. The foundation of this is exercising the visionary and imagination muscles in sculpting new futures that affirm the present and are rooted in the past." [3]

Contents

Education

Duyst-Akpem was born in Mkar, Benue State, Nigeria. [4] She holds a BA from Smith College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. [5]

Performances and exhibitions

Her work has been presented at Fe Gallery, Philadelphia, Art Loop Open, Chicago, THE LAB, NYC, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. Her performance High Priestess of the Intergalactic Federation, Special Envoy to Mars was presented at the Decolonizing Mars symposium at the United States Library of Congress 2018 as part of the Becoming Interplanetary symposium held there. This interactive performance-lecture-experience was also presented at the ICA in London. The ICA performance was in response to an exhibition titled Temporal Deprogramming and intended to engage the audience in questioning what it means to reach for the stars, become interplanetary, and to be human. [6]

On February 2, 2020, Duyst-Akpem launched the AFRIFUTURI 02022020 monograph and The Camo Coat Collection at Blanc Gallery, Chicago. [7]

Awards

Duyst-Akpem was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for the Institute on Black Aesthetics and Sacred Systems. [8] She has also received both a Marion Kryczka Excellence in Teaching Award and Teaching Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion from SAIC. [9] Duyst-Akpem was a 2017 Place Lab Fellow, Rebuild Foundation with U-Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. She was also a 2022 La Becque Laureate. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Futurism</span> Artistic and social movement

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures included Italian artists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. Italian Futurism glorified modernity and, according to its doctrine, "aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past." Important Futurist works included Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Balla's 1913–1914 painting Abstract Speed + Sound, and Russolo's The Art of Noises (1913).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Contemporary Arts</span> Art and cultural centre in London

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA contains galleries, a theatre, two cinemas, a bookshop and a bar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afrofuturism</span> Cultural aesthetic and philosophy

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neo-futurism</span> Architectural and art movement and style

Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lunar and Planetary Laboratory</span> Lab at University of Arizona

The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the world's largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary science in a university setting. The Lunar and Planetary Lab collection is held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nell Irvin Painter</span> American historian (born 1942)

Nell Irvin Painter is an American historian notable for her works on United States Southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University as the Edwards Professor of American History Emerita. She has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and as president of the Southern Historical Association, and was appointed as chair of MacDowell's board of directors in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deep space exploration</span> Branch of astronomy

Deep-space exploration is the branch of astronomy, astronautics, and space technology that is involved with exploring the distant regions of outer space. However, little consensus has been reached on the meaning of "distant" regions. In some contexts, it is used to refer to interstellar space. The International Telecommunication Union defines deep space to start at a distance of 2 million km (1.2 million mi) from Earth's surface. NASA's Deep Space Network has variously used criteria of 16,000–32,000 km (9,900–19,900 mi) from Earth. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft.

Claudia Gould is an art curator and former Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director of The Jewish Museum in New York City.

Julia Bryan-Wilson is Professor of Art at Columbia University. She was previously the Doris and Clarence Malo Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of California, Berkeley. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.

Tiffany Holmes is an American new media artist and educator. She is based in Chicago, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martine Syms</span> American artist (born in 1988)

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.

Andrea Carlson is a mixed-media American visual artist currently based in Chicago. She also maintains a studio space and has a strong artistic presence in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Krista Franklin is an American poet and visual artist, whose main artistic focus is collage. Her work, which addresses race, gender, and class issues, combines personal, pop-cultural, and historical imagery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nettrice Gaskins</span>

Nettrice R. Gaskins is an African-American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. In her work, she explores "techno-vernacular creativity" and Afrofuturism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sian Proctor</span> American astronaut and professor

Sian Hayley "Leo" Proctor is an American commercial astronaut, geology professor, artist, author, and science communicator. She became the first female commercial spaceship pilot on the all-civilian Inspiration4 orbital spaceflight, 15 September 2021. As pilot of the Inspiration4's SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule, Proctor became the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft. She was also the education outreach officer for the first Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission. In 2024, Proctor was selected to be a U.S. Science Envoy for the United States Department of State.

Barbara Sykes into a family of artists, designers and inventors. Since childhood, she has produced work in a variety of different art forms. In 1974, she became one of Chicago's pioneering video and new media artists and, later to include, independent video producer, exhibition curator and teacher. Sykes is a Chicago based experimental video artist who explores themes of spirituality, ritual and indigeneity from a feminist perspective. Sykes is known for her pioneering experimentation with computer graphics in her video work, utilizing the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Chicago, at a time when this technology was just emerging. Her early works broke new grounds in Chicago's emerging New Media Art scene, and continue to inspire women to explore experimental realms. With a passion for community, she fostered significant collaborations with many institutions that include but are not limited to University of Illinois, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, Center for New Television, and (art)n laboratory. These collaborations became exemplary for the showcasing of new media work. The wave of video, new media and computer art that she pioneered alongside many other seminal early Chicago New Media artists persists as a major influence for artists and educators today. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at institutions such as Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Metropolitan Museum of Art , Museum of the Art Institute (Chicago), The Metropolitan Museum of Art and SIGGRAPH. Sykes's tapes have been broadcast in Sweden, Italy, Puerto Rico and extensively throughout in the US, including "The Independents", PBS national broadcast, 1985, and national cablecast, 1984. Media Burn has an online selection of her tapes and over 200 of her raw footage, master edits, dubs and compilation tapes in their Independent Video Archives @ Barbara Sykes https://mediaburn.org/collections/videomakers-page/barbara-sykes/. Select grants include a National Endowment for the Arts and American Film Institute Regional Fellowship, Evanston Art Council Cultural Arts Fund and several Illinois Arts Council grants. In 2017, Sykes began to paint. In 2020, as the recipient of an Evanston Art Center Individual Artist Exhibition Award, Ethereal Abstractions, Sykes's first solo watercolor exhibition premiered 81paintings and she gave an online Artist Talk. Her paintings are lyrical, colorful abstractions reminiscent of organic shapes, ethereal forms and underwater landscapes - evocative impressions of spiritual and elemental worlds. They evoke the spontaneity and themes that have evolved from her previous body of time-based and digital artwork. In 2021, she moved to Florida. Her 2022 painting exhibitions/reviews include Forces of Nature showcased on the cover of Estero Life Magazine and she is in the article, Beholding Beauty: Artists of Estero Exhibit at COCO Art Gallery, the Florida Watercolor Society's 2022 Online Show, the 36th Annual All Florida Exhibition and Connections Art in Flight exhibit at the Southwest Florida International Airport, June 2022 to June 2023. She paints under the name of Barbara L. Sykes.

Rasheedah Phillips is an American artist, author, community activist and lawyer based in Philadelphia. She is the creator of The Afrofuturist Affair and, together with Camae Ayewa, the Black Quantum Futurism multidisciplinary artist collective.

Shawné Michaelain Holloway is a Chicago-based American new media artist and digital feminist whose practice incorporates sound, performance, poetry, and installation with focuses in new media art, feminist art, net art, digital art. Holloway engages with the rhetoric of technology and sexuality to excavate the hidden architectures of power structures and gender norms.

Karen Hampton is an American textile artist, working as a weaver, surface designer, and fabric dyer. She has also worked as a researcher on the history of textile production. As of 2022, she was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council. Hampton lives in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katja MacLeod Kessin</span> German-Canadian artist

Katja MacLeod Kessin (1959–2006) was a German-born Canadian painter.

References

  1. ↑ "D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem". Ox-Bow. 2 June 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  2. ↑ "D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem". Denenge. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  3. ↑ "Pedagogy. Place. Liberation". Place Lab. 26 January 2017. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  4. ↑ "Interview with D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem". Chicago Archives + Artists Project. 15 February 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  5. ↑ "The Daily Fool: Q&A with Auction artist D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem | Washington Project for the Arts". www.wpadc.org. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  6. ↑ "ICA | Black Quantum Futurism × D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem: High Priestess of the Intergalactic Federation, Special Envoy to Mars". www.ica.art. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  7. ↑ "Denenge Duyst-Akpem – KyCAD" . Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  8. ↑ "The Daily Fool: Q&A with Auction artist D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem | Washington Project for the Arts". www.wpadc.org. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  9. ↑ "D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem". Ox-Bow. 2 June 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  10. ↑ "D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem". Chicago Artists Coalition. Retrieved 25 June 2022.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.