Red Spring Part II: Upheavals & Resistance

Thank you to our Contributors

Linda D. Addison
Adeyemi Agdebasan
Jackie B
S. Ross Browne
Gerardo Castro
Mike Cooley
Audra D
Muniyra Douglas
Zeal Harris
Winifred Hawkins
Hippy Soul
InnerGy
Janessa Jenkins
Jacqueline Johnson
Patience Lekien
Jorge Elecier Bermudez Lemus
Mahwyah Milton
Yasin Alah AKA Mmilk
Nicki Monteiro
Roland Mulderian
Andrea Rushing
A. Slate

View all Contributors and bios HERE


Origin Story


Conceived by Reynaldo Anderson and Stacey Robinson of the Black Speculative Arts Movement and guest-curated by Sheree Renée Thomas, Danielle L. Littlefield, and Dacia Polk, this four-part exhibition brings together the voices and visions of artists from around the world. Created in the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and during an increasingly distressing international pandemic, this work responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, cyclical anti-Black violence, rising climate change that is having an immediate, real-time disastrous effect on communities of color, poor governance, trans-humanism, and an accelerating, technologically driven, predatory global economic system on the verge of collapse that intentionally exploits "undeveloped" nations for their natural resources around the world.


The visual art, music, animated shorts, graphic collages, photographs, stories, poems, and experimental explorations are representative of Afrofuturism in its many forms. From the streets to the academy, urban and rural, these works are intergenerational and intersectional, touching upon Ancestral Memory, Social and Civil Upheavals and Resistance, Afrofuturism and New Myths, Environmental Wildseeds and New BlackFutures. 


These gifted artists continue to create and innovate during times that are challenging for everyone, but impact creative artists in specific ways. Their creations show that art is the language of humanity and that we need artistic expressions that excavate, reveal, translate, and extrapolate now more than ever. These border-crossing, genre-smashing works contain worlds within worlds. We invite you to take your time to enter these spaces from any entry point you choose. Inspired by the age-old tradition of speculative fiction, these works explore the role of memory, the power of resistance in the face of great adversity, the liberatory and revolutionary power of the imagination, the strength and resilience of the Black family, the wisdom of the elders, the joyful anachronistic and brilliance of cosplay, Wakandan and lolita, the resourcefulness of futuristic fashions from recycled treasures, and the imperative to explore new worlds, within ourselves, within each other, and here on earth and beyond, never ceasing, ever growing/going forward.  


We offer our gratitude to each of these special artists for their contributions and time and for our partners, Bill T. Jones's NY LIVE ARTS, BSAM: The Black Speculative Arts Movement, particularly BSAM St. Louis, BSAM Memphis, BSAM Canada, Vescent Design, Black Pot Mojo Arts, Neighborhood Heroes, Afroflux, Afro_Futures UK, The Afrofuturist Affair, Gerardo Castro, Black Kirby, NubiaMancy, Kaos Network, Blerd City Con, Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, Zion Network, and Google Arts & Culture. For more artworks, visit www.bsam-art.com and @bsamstl on Instagram.


Credits: All Media
The visual art, music, stories, poems, videos, and essays may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed above, who have supplied the content.