Afro Dino Hack 2023

Date: 15/04/2023

Time: 11am

The Afro Dino Hack returns for 2023 on 15th April from 11am. Hosted at the Afroflux space in Birmingham, with sponsorship from Blast Fest UK, the design jam and hackathon is an opportunity to get creative and explore new ways of sharing African paleontology and other collections with our community.

The hackathon will be hosted in person and online. For those online, you will be asked to join us for check-ins but apart from that, you are free to work with a totally remote team or hybrid. Zoom breakout rooms will be provided.

The event is suitable for all ages – for the younger ones there will be a craft table which includes a zine and dinosaur mask making station and a series of quick talks through the day about the history and contribution of Black paleontologists.

If you would be interested in sponsoring the event, giving a talk or have any questions, please do get in touch by email to afrofutures.uk@gmail.com

Get your ticket here

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Building from the Dust @ Roundhouse

Date: 01/04/23

Time: 4:45pm

Throughout West Africa, the masquerade is an important figure in seasonal festivals and impromptu celebrations. Embodying powerful spirits of the community, they go by many names but are instantly recognisable.

But how might they have a place in the futures we want to see? How might our traditions inspire rooted design as we rethink our cities, our boroughs and the everyday services we use? What shared stories can we bring together in practical and creative ways?

From the guild figures of West Africa and Cuba; the carnival characters from New Orleans and Trinidad; from Notting Hill to the Afrofuturist costuming of George Clinton and Missy Elliot, this workshop combines an introduction to the histories of the masquerade, service design and global Black design practice to bring together communal visions of the future.

This workshop is part of the Futures program at the Roundhouse from 1st March to 14th April. Further information about the program can be found here.

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Get your ticket here

Afro Dino Hack 2018

AfroFutures_UK in association with wildcard.js is super pleased to announce our first ever Afro Dino Hack is coming to you live on 14th-15th December at Camberwell Library!

An AfroFuturist Curriculum: Seminars in 2017

Are you an artist interested in identities and new realities? Are you a researcher passionate about sharing  your knowledge with the wider community? Be you artist, academic, maker, creative or speaker, if you would like to contribute to our virtual knowledge hub, read on…

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Considering we’re most of the way through the first month of 2017, this is a much belated post but it’s been hard to sum up a tumultuous year. On the other hand, it was also a year of collaboration and new beginnings for us as we moved base to the Midlands.

December meetup!

There’s so much we have yet to catch up on, from the amazing weekend at PAC45 to MozFest to the patreon and the new zines… but before we do that, we better invite you to our next event coming on 8th December at Birmingham Open Media Lab.

Join us as we watch some Nollywood and Ethiopian sci-fi, make comics, catch up on what’s coming next in 2017 and of course chow down on some plantain… Bring yourselves and what you do and don’t be shy. We’re all strange here!

Free tickets are on eventbrite.

The Black Maker | Notes on Black tech and innovation

Last week was a week of firsts. On Thursday we hosted our first poetry-art-performance event at the Southbank, co-produced with Birmingham based ArtivistsUK. With barely any time to spare we were back to our 2016 AfroFutures_UK conference, The Black Maker, hosted by Birmingham Open Media Lab.

Featuring world renowned mathematicians, artists, local technologists and makers, The Black Maker was a glorious mix of the speculative and the commemorative; discussions ranged from the use of sonic technologies and fractals in pre-colonial African societies to the innovation and radical verve of black mathematicians working in a field often still beset by overtly racist perceptions of black ability. Through talks, discussion, workshops and music, we explored the range of black innovation in tech and the contributions of black makers to scientific progress.

A Night at the Southbank: Thoughts on Cosmic Ashoke

The funny thing is, you have no idea how long it took us to come up with a name. It was a Monday or a Thursday evening at the Impact Hub and we were huddled at a table, scribbling out random words on post-its as we wondered just what we should call this… happening we were organising. Cosmic Ashoke wasn’t even our first choice but for some reason when it came down to it, that was the one that went forward. By the end of Thursday night, as the lights were turned back on and the mmanwu packed away, it seemed like there could never have been any other name to call it.

6th October saw the first collaboration between Artivist UK and AfroFutures_UK to produce an event in honour of national poetry day at the Southbank Centre, a day which also included poetry readings accompanied by live drawing with the wonderful Chris Ridell.

The Black Maker, a conference on STEM and black tech

Our (now officially) annual conference arrives at Birmingham for 2016, hosted by the team at Birmingham Open Media Lab. As always you can expect an interdisciplinary mashup of topics in our usual style, with talks, workshops and performance throughout the day.

The Black Maker aims to put the spotlight on black thought, invention and creativity in technology. As an Afrofuturist collective, we want to explore how technology has been impacted by and impacts the black experience and where the intersection of science, tech and liberation lie. Last year our central question was what will blackness look like in the future, this year we want to ask how we will get there.

What to expect?

Cosmic Ashoke & The Black Maker

This coming week is an exciting one for us as we have not one but two events, both very different but both looking to be very special.

First up on 6th October is Cosmic Ashoke, AfroFutures_UK’s first ever collaboration with the folks from Artivist UK, a socio-political platform that seeks to provide impetus for radical change through the arts. I’ve been to a couple of their events in Birmingham and have always been blown away by the performances and passion.