Afrofutures: Africa and the Aesthetics of Black Revolution. Issue 5 (2nd November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wofford, Tobias
• Is Part Of: Third text. Volume 31:Issue 5/6(2017)
• Page Start: 633
• Page End: 649
• Publication Date: 2017-11-02
• Subjects: Tobias Wofford -- Jeff Donaldson -- Sun Ra -- Afrofuturism -- African Diaspora -- AfriCOBRA -- Black Arts Movement -- African American Art -- Pan-Africanism -- Africa; Art and society -- Periodicals; Art -- Developing countries -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Intellectual life -- Periodicals; 700.91724
• DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2018.1431472
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0952-8822

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the role of Africa in the avant-garde aesthetic and political convictions of Jeff Donaldson and the AfriCOBRA group. It considers AfriCOBRA and its Black Nationalist artistic expressions in terms of a diasporic strategy for articulating and constructing community. Rather than consider the work's engagement with Africa as solely a look to an ancestral past, this article considers Africa as a touchstone for articulating a revolutionary and future-looking art movement. Discussions of 'Afrofuturism' often focus on fantasy and science fiction seen in examples such as the futuristic persona of Sun Ra and his film, Space is the Place . This article discusses the political and rhetorical work of revolution in the Black Nationalist thinking embraced by AfriCOBRA as a similar kind of conceptual reimagining of the world and its potential futures.