Oakland’s Museum of California examines the social movement Afrofuturism through the lens of literature, music, film, art and more in Mothership: Voyage into Afrofuturism, an exhibit that recently closed on February 27th.
Upon entering, visitors are faced with a plaque providing them with a base definition of Afrofuturism. The display defines the term as “a declaration of Black life that is grounded in an equitable present and future that acknowledges the value in Blackness.”
Before opening a discussion on Black influences within science fiction, it’s important to acknowledge the experimentation and speculation that Black bodies have been subjected to throughout time. Communities are forced to look back on the travesties of slavery, the Tuskegee Experiment, Jim Crow and more to understand how Blackness has already become synonymous with alien. Texts such as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and George S. Schuyler’s Black No More have long employed extraterrestrial tendencies to write about race.
However, if being Black is already to become an “other,” then why must Black individuals fight for their right to belong in imagined futures?
The term Afrofuturism was coined by Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future,” wherein he interviews notable Black intellectuals and authors Samuel R. Delaney, Greg Tate and Tricia Rose. Said intellectuals discuss the representation of African-American experiences and culture within futuristic genres of the graphic novel, fiction and hip-hop music.
Additionally within Derry’s writings, he introduces the reader to Octavia Butler, the mother of Black surrealist thought.
Within Mothership, Butler is hailed for her contributions to the field and is appropriately celebrated for her extensive bibliography. A photo of her leaning against her home bookshelf is plastered against one wall of the exhibit with tattered copies of bestsellers like Wild Seed, Dawn and Kindred positioned right below. Personal diary excerpts are also displayed, presenting the encouragement she gave herself while writing her novels that reshaped science fiction.
courtesy of Senai Wilks
Butler left behind a legacy for her pseudo-clairvoyant ability to predict the catastrophic realities our world will ultimately encounter even though she disagreed. Alternatively, Butler believed she was able to “look around at the problems we are neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters” as she wrote in 2000 for Essence Magazine.
Her sense of futuristic depiction is especially prevalent in her book Parable of the Sower, published in 1993 but taking place in 2025. The book forecasts a world where extreme climate change and subsequent economic turmoil have left those remaining in a constant state of survival. Suburbs are no longer safe, cities are non-existent and Americans’ only hope of living is finding passage into the Northern parts of the country or Canada. Invigorated by what she is witnessing across her country, Lauren Olamina, the novel’s young Black protagonist, creates her own religion called Earthseed and uses it to guide others and construct new visions for the future.
If read during the uncertainty that was the summer of 2020 when global pandemic fear and BLM outcries filled the air, Parable of the Sower had the ability to leave its readers in shock. As each page mirrored the exact crises that were being played out in the present, it could’ve been argued that Butler actually had gazed into the future and written down as much as she could of what she saw. In regards to Octavia Butler’s legacy, Lick-Wilmerding High School’s Dr. Angela Wall proclaims “I think it’s very telling that she… was concerned about climate change when climate change wasn’t on anybody’s agenda or radar. I think that’s why now 20, 30 years later, she’s so huge because finally, the world has caught up to Octavia Butler.”
Between each horrific passage detailing the violence and desperation that’s sure to come, Butler also hides kernels of hope through the scriptures of Earthseed. Behind her crystal ball, she wrote a story that not only warned of what the future holds but provided comfort when people needed it most. Earthseed and Lauren’s strength have become something to believe in when believing in anything seems hopeless.
Along with Octavia Butler, Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) also displays work by others like Sun Ra, Funkadelic and W.E.B. Du Bois to portray the wide range of media that Afrofuturism encompasses.
Pocketed into a corner and projected against the wall, a clip pans across a forest of oddly shaped vegetation and vibrantly colored trees. Blue bushes and coral reef-like crops fill the scene as ominous music plays in the background, leaving viewers in suspense. Slowly, the camera transitions to a pharaoh figure as the words “Sun Ra” flash on the screen.
What visitors are witnessing is the movie Space is the Place, created by the jazz musician and activist Sun Ra. The film follows him on a futuristic journey to Oakland to defeat the Overseer, a demonic figure that draws power from the exploitation of Black people. Created in collaboration with writer Joshua Smith and director John Coney in 1974, Space is the Place mythologized Sun Ra’s belief that it was his responsibility to rescue Black people from anti-Black hate on Earth and transport them to different planets where brighter futures could be cultivated.
Additionally, with his band Arkestra, Sun Ra also made albums like “The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra” and “Atlantis” which have become landmarks to those creating forward-thinking, genre-bending music. His abundant creativity and passion for activism have become an inspiration to many, long after his death.
Flashing green, blue and red, a dome shaped vessel is planted in the center of the Oakland Museum’s exhibit. The contraption blasts with noise as a video of a man singing is reflected against one wall and his voice hangs overhead. The man’s face is bathed in a different light as each color cycles through, creating an immersive experience.
Visitors may be shocked to learn that this ship didn’t land from space and wasn’t once inhabited by aliens but is a recreation of a common stage prop called the P-Funk Mothership featured on many of Funkadelic’s tours.
courtesy of Senai Wilks
Led by George Clinton, Funkadelic was another experimental band from the sixties and seventies that furthered the Black rock scene by employing sonic imagery in their lyrics. Featuring imaginative album covers casting Black people as robots in the cosmos, Funkadelic played with the idea of science fiction as it related to Blackness. Located within the Mothership, notable concert videos are displayed, bringing spectators into Funkadelic’s world and making them feel as if they have boarded on a funk-filled journey.
Although much of OMCA’s exhibit relies on planetary and technological influences to portray Afrofuturism, they also feature artifacts that reflect the real-life prosperity of Black folks such as the charts and photographs produced for the 1900 Paris Exposition.
In line with that years’ theme of celebrating the success and advancements made during the 19th century, W.E.B. Du Bois decided to contribute to the Exposition with his American Negro Exhibit. His collection of formal family portraits, detailed infographics of economic and geographical statuses and individual portraiture broadcasted the achievements made by Black people in the years following emancipation.
courtesy of Senai Wilks
Proven by the four high-class portraits featured against a wall of Mothership, Du Bois was able to reclaim photography as a mode to humanize and celebrate Black culture to the white public when it was traditionally only used to display the horrors of slavery.
As visitors enter the last room of Mothership and begin reaching the exhibit’s end, they are prompted to define what Black spaces mean to them. Tucked into a corner and mounted on the wall, their answers pass through on the screen ranging from words like “sacredness” to “dreams of the present in hope for our future.” With each response, guests are able to dream of what the Black community will look like, inspiring others to do the same.
courtesy of Senai Wilks
Although patrons may reach the end of the gallery, Oakland’s Museum of California’s exploration of Afrofuturism hasn’t stopped. Instead, it is continued in their gift shop which features books like Octavia’s Brood and Black Futures. The space also carries the interactive card game, Afro-Rithms From The Future, that “is designed to draw out unexpected possibilities, encourage radical reimagining, and collaboratively produce visions of diverse futures,” as stated by creative director Dr. Lonny Brooks.
Dr. Brooks is an Associate Professor in Strategic Communication at California State University East Bay and created Afro-Rithms with Eli Kosminsky in 2019. In response to what impact he hopes Afro-Rithms has on Black communities, Dr. Brooks declared “As we stand in the twilight zone of horror, where regressive political policies reassert their ugly grip, Black speculative pathways offer more than hope; it offers a means to imagine and actually build the things we wish to see in the world.”
His words remind us that the Black community has a pulse, one that may become faint with each past and present trauma revealed, but must be revitalized through the power of reimagining, reinventing, and reinspiring Black futures.
