Mami Wata Afrofuturism: 500 Years Back to the [Afro][F]uture

April 12 - June 29, 2024

From HMAAC:

“The Houston Museum of African American Culture is thrilled to present Mami Wata Afrofuturism:500 Years Back to the [Afro][F]uture, curated by HMAAC’s Chief Curator Christopher Blay. The exhibition envisions the future through the lens of the past and focuses on works by artists of the African Diaspora who consider the transatlantic and trans-Mississippi delta journeys of black people across waters, carrying with them histories, mythologies, and cultures towards new futures.

The exhibition includes paintings, photography and digital painting on paper, photographs, video, and sculpture from the following artists: Arnold J. Browne, Carla Jay Harris, Lewinale Havette, Miatta Kawinzi, Abi Salami, Lakea Shepard, and Raymond Thompson.

A conversation with the artists, moderated by Chief Curator Blay, will be on Saturday, April 13, at 2PM at HMAAC.

There will also be a Wednesday, April 24, 7PM screening of the movie Mami Wata by director C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi. The public is invited to register for free tickets for the film here https://2024hmaacfilms.eventive.org/schedule/65c39fbbb6ddb40056443660.

Mami Wata Afrofuturism is Inspired by an essay of the same title written by curator Blay last spring, in which he wrote “The first acts of Afrofuturism began at the crossing of the Atlantic by enslaved  people. They were being taken to an unknown space, shackled, crammed in  small spaces, with no certainty about where they were going or what they would  encounter. As poet Nikki Giovanni described it in ‘Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea  (We’re Going to Mars),’ who better to travel to Mars than ‘people herded into  ships so tightly packed there was no room to turn,’ covering vast distances with  no certainty of what awaited them?”

What they brought with them across those vast distances were their beliefs and their visions. The technology in Mami Wata Afrofuturism is ancestral knowledge, the future is now. The artists in this exhibition conceive of spaces where enslaved African peoples first envisioned what their futures could be. By incorporating the mythology of Mami Wata in their practices or otherwise acknowledging the histories and cultures of the African diaspora, they weave a connective filament through the waters that were traversed to usher in the possibilities of Black tomorrows. It is a reclamation of future spaces from the depths of the gulf waters of the Atlantic, through the flow of the Mississippi River and beyond. Their perspectives incorporate the limitless expanse of space and the incalculable metrics of time as Black people have been doing since our ancestors navigated land and sea with stars, and astrolabes.”

Reception: April 12, 2024 | 6–8 pm

Houston Museum of African American Culture

4807 Caroline St.

Houston, TX

(713) 353-1578

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