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On view through March 2024, the exhibition features cultural and historical objects relating to the concept of Afrofuturism, a term coined in 1993 to describe the work of Black scholars, writers and artists who used science fiction, technology and larger-than-life Black heroes to explore what was, what might have been and what might yet be.
One such artifact is a sky-blue Olivetti Studio 46 typewriter used by the acclaimed sci-fi writer Octavia E. Butler, whose novels incorporated Black culture and featured Black heroes overcoming racism and oppression. Next to the typewriter are the original notes Butler used for her 1979 masterpiece, “Kindred,” a novel about a Black woman who is transported through time and between worlds to explore the brutality and dehumanizing effects of enslavement.
“You got to make your own worlds,” Butler wrote. “You got to write yourself in.”
That’s the real power of “Afrofuturism”: It boldly goes “where no man has gone,” to paraphrase the opening of “Star Trek” — referenced in the show with the uniform worn by Nichelle Nichols’s Lt. Nyota Uhura. As with Nichols’s pioneering character, “Afrofuturism” recalibrates the stories told about Black people in world history, writing them into the forefront of the narrative, if only an imagined one.
Showstoppers include the “Scream” chair, used as a prop in the futuristic 1995 music video by Michael and Janet Jackson, whose lyrics proclaim: “Tired of the injustice, tired of the schemes, lies are disgusting, so what does it mean?” You’ll also see a synthesizer used by jazz great Miles Davis; a red, yellow and blue wig worn by George Clinton while performing with Parliament-Funkadelic; a purple, star-spangled robe designed by musician Sun Ra to be worn by members of his “Arkestra”; and the form-fitting costume worn by actor Chadwick Boseman in the movie “Black Panther.”
Full stop. Move closer. Stand in awe at its intricacy and importance — as a signifier of power.
The show unfolds like a maze, spinning us through a labyrinth that examines racism through the lens of the imagination, laying out how Black creatives used science fiction and speculative technology — navigating the stars on television, creating comic book superheroes, inventing new worlds in literature and film — as a form of escapism from the power structure that tried to repress (or exterminate) them, along with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the story that weaves through its interconnected themes, “Afrofuturism” demonstrates how seemingly miraculous it is that an oppressed people overcame colonialism and racism to not only survive but thrive, in the process pushing the boundaries of culture.
Themes of survival and triumph thread through the objects on display: a costume worn by singer Nona Hendryx of Labelle; another created for keyboardist Bernie Worrell’s 1996 Mothership Reconnection tour with P-Funk; and a bullet-riddled gray hoodie worn by Mike Colter as Luke Cage, the Marvel superhero sent to prison for a crime he did not commit — where he was subjected to experiments that led to his superhuman abilities, which include being impervious to bullets.
Here’s how the museum interprets that potent garment: It “visually reinterprets the real-life killing of Trayvon Martin in an homage to his and other Black lives lost to violence.”
Walking through the show, under a haze of blue light that seems to distort chronology, can feel like time travel, as though one could really exist yesterday, today and tomorrow simultaneously.
“Afrofuturism is essentially reimagining of the past and conceptualizing the present to conceptualize new futures,” says exhibition curator Kevin Strait, who paused during the show’s opening celebration to discuss its themes. “It stems from literary theory, but it’s surpassed that and become a real driver of culture. We see it in so many different ways: in film, television, music, literature and activism as well.”
This show, in other words, is of the moment. “Afrofuturism has entered our lexicon and become more mainstream,” Strait continues. “With movies like ‘Black Panther’ dominating the box office, more and more people are talking about the concept of Afrofuturism and how it applies to categories of art and expression.”
The show opens, after a short escalator ride down from the museum’s ground floor entrance, with an Afrofuturism explainer — a necessity to orient the viewer. The term was coined by cultural critic and researcher Mark Dery, who in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future” wrote, “Speculative fiction that treats African American themes and addresses African American concerns in the context of twentieth-century techno-culture — and, more generally, African American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future — might, for want of a better term, be called ‘Afrofuturism.’”
Dery goes on: “Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures?”
The show offers an answer to that question, while seemingly spanning galaxies, beginning with ancient history in Africa, where civilizations studied celestial maps and built pyramids that still hold mysteries, centuries after their construction.
According to the museum, Afrofuturism can be seen in the pre-colonial kingdoms of Mali and Egypt, where it is found in art, philosophy and cultural traditions. African civilizations studied the stars — from the Dogon people of West Africa to the Yoruba — and the Egyptians developed technology based on celestial observation. These cultures were able to forecast the weather, create calendars and navigate the seas. Astronomy developed by African civilizations set the stage for Afrofuturism.
The term itself, which looks backward as well as forward, can be used to describe the Black freedom fighters who saw beyond the limitations of enslavement. Also on display here: “Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazine: The Saga of Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People,” a 1967 publication demonstrating how scholars consider the abolitionist as an Afrofuturist.
“Afrofuturism” pays homage to W.E.B. Du Bois, the historian and sociologist who wrote: “The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.” To Du Bois, the veil is a metaphor, explaining how White society is blind to racism “that prohibits and obstructs the ability to ‘see’ Black citizenship and humanity.”
The show celebrates Black science fiction writers and storytellers, including Samuel Delany, whose novels were set in space, and Nuotama Bodomo, a Ghanaian filmmaker whose short film “Afronauts” tells the true story of Zambia’s National Academy of Science, Space, Research and Philosophy and its effort to launch a 17-year-old astronaut into space.
Examining the perils of racialized medicine and the history of experimentation on Black bodies, the exhibition delves into several horror stories: the work of James Marion Sims, sometimes called the father of gynecology, who performed surgeries on enslaved women without anesthesia; the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of the deadly venereal disease, without treatment; and the story of Henrietta Lacks, a young housewife and mother of five whose “immortal” cells refused to die, leading to advances in scientific research, two Nobel Prizes and the development of vaccines, cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization and a genome sequence.
Moving through the exhibition, the ticking of the clock stops and space jumps galaxies, sending viewers deeper and deeper into an unfolding concept of Afrofuturism. Over here is a case containing Meshell Ndegeocello’s bass guitar; another displays a headdress from singer Erykah Badu. Over there is a nod to Roger Troutman’s synthesizer “talkbox,” heard in songs like “California Love,” and the Memorymoog synthesizer played by Herbie Hancock.
Near the exit of the show hangs the Hooded Justice costume from HBO’s 2019 series “Watchmen,” which reimagined Black people as masked heroes fighting racism and retold the real-world horror of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when White mobs killed as many as 300 Black people. On view is the costume worn by the Oscar-winning actress Regina King as “Watchmen’s” protagonist, Sister Night.
“People who wear masks are driven by trauma,” King’s character is told on the show. “They’re obsessed with justice because of some injustice they suffered, usually when they were kids. Ergo, the mask. It hides the pain.”
Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures
National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave. NW. nmaahc.si.edu.
Dates: Through March 24, 2024.
Admission: Free. Timed-entry passes are required.
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