Fantastical Futures (?): through the lens, looking forward to the African imaginary

The lecture evaluates the concepts of solidarity movements entangled in the African Diaspora‘s various constellations within the 21st Century. By doing so, it envisages Africa as conceptual geography of evolving relationships shaped by migration and multiracialism. Questioning whether a strengthening imagination of contemporary Africa is indeed a break from the political genealogy of Black nationalism brought forth by Pan-Africanism and Négritude or just the latest neoliberal flavor of the month? Rather than taking a firm stance, the talk seeks to open up a dialogue about concepts such as Afropolitanism as an ethic for the age of global cosmopolitanism. At the same time, it reckons with the problem of the inverse relationship: that is, the question of diaspora. The term Afropolitan is contested in its various constellation and, at the least, is seen as a fairly ambiguous term which positions itself apolitically against Left thinking Pan-Africanism. It juxtaposes the power relations between Africans born and raised on the African Continent with those raised in America or Europe, often privileged by access and dual citizenship. Criticized by some as a palatable way to relate to the Continent in which whiteness and the western definitions of modernity are still central.

Abbéy Odunlami Ph.D. is a Yoruba-Nigerian-American researcher, theorist, and educator / curator whose work investigates contemporary urban history and visual culture(s). His interdisciplinary practice challenges assumptions of history, culture, race, and conventions of display. Odunlami has worked with institutions such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. In addition, he lectures on urbanism and critical theory in the Contemporary Practices & Photography Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in Detroit, MI | Chicago, IL (USA), and Berlin (Germany) with his partner and their newborn daughter. As a scholar working in cultural analysis and visual and critical studies, my research centers on the intersections of design, art, culture, and technology as conduits of engagement within the public sphere, complex urban environments, and sociocultural institutions.