Afrofuturism & Spatial Practices
w/ Natasha Ruwona
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In September 2020, Natasha Thembiso Ruwona presented a new chapter of their ongoing research Afrofuturism + Spatial Practices that employs Afrofuturism as a tool for exploring and imagining the formation of new worlds. Originally created for Rhubaba Gallery & Studio’s No School! program, Natasha has further developed the performance lecture and this iteration features reflections that consider music, sound and technology as being a part of Black geographical landscapes, while exploring dreams and what it means to be a myth.
Natasha Thembiso Ruwona is a Scottish-Zimbabwean artist, researcher and curator. Their artistic practice is research based and investigates racialised spatialisation (in line with Black Feminist Geographies) via the processes of writing, digital art and performance.
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Further references:
A list of materials based on references in Natasha Ruwona's lecture and the discussion that followed.
Videos:
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Black to Techno, dir. Jenn Nkiru [view]
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Space is the Place, written by Sun Ra, dir. John Coney
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A Family Called Abrew, dir. Maureen Blackwood [view]
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Black Atlantis, Ayesha Hameed [view]
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Books:
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In The Wake: On Being and Blackness, Christina Sharpe
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Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book, Hortense Spillers
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Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-modernity, Alexander G. Weheliye
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Imagining the Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture, Ed. Carol E. Henderson
Articles:​
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​Sun Ra: Myth, Science, and Science Fiction, Päivi Väätänen [read]
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Sun Ra in Egypt, Tom Bogaert [read]
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The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors, Saidiya Hartman
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Ellen Gallagher - Coral Cities, Drexcyia Research Lab
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‘Africa As an Alien Future’: The Middle Passage, Ruth Mayer
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Souls of the sea, Jackie Kay [read]
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Radical imagination is a necessary, sustaining force of black activism, Savonne Anderson [read]
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Black Atlantic, Queer Atlantic: Queer Imaginings of the. Middle Passage, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley