These exhibitions are a selection of curated experiences that represent uniquely crafted happenings between artists and their beloved communities which help us shape our desired equitable tomorrows.

BauHop: A Multimedia Experience

BauHop is a multimodal improvisational visual and sound experience that takes Hip-Hop’s five primary elements: DJing, emceeing, graffiti, breakdancing, knowledge and overlaps them with traditions of graphics design, collage, sacred geometry, African fractals, and more. Bauhop art is inspired in part by the Bauhaus movement and celebrates the artistic freedom of the Weimar Republic, which existed from 1919-1933. The exhibition’s debut was a shared experience within the Champaign-Urbana performance community and is in collaboration with Carnegie Hall’s 2024 festival ‘Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice.’

  • Jean Grae

  • Wrath

  • Doctor

  • 22twos

  • Blue-n’-Cream

  • UptownXpress

Black Utopias: Black Distractions + Disruptions in Time/Space

is a design research project looking at systems of oppression and resistance through black and white logo designs and illustrations that use the emptiness of white gallery walls as the backdrop for extracting Black resistance commentary. The systems examined springboard a burgeoning theory comprised of Black-created systems that can function as a form of Black liberation government in lieu of reparations, justice, and failed integration. MORE

Audacious Black Freedom Dreams

Inspired by Robin D.G. Kelley’s book ‘Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination’, and Bettina L. Love's book 'We Want to do More Than Survive', Audacious Black Freedom Dreams is a Black surreal space created by BLACKMAU. BLACKMAU is multimedia artists Stacey “BLACKSTAR” Robinson and Kamau “DJ Kamaumau” Grantham. Together the duo utilizes digital collage aesthetics that are influenced by, and that digitally mimic the visual and sonic production methods of the cultures that influenced them for decades. Audacious Black Freedom Dreams is an exhibition of 5, 7-foot banners with 10 different images that are viewed from both sides and are exhibited in various ways. MORE

Branding the AfroFuture

is a multimodal art exploration into the multimedia aesthetics of my Black futuristic imaginings. It is visualized through a myriad of configurations with a specific focus on jumpstarting the audience’s imagination, to introduce to them even the idea of Black people in the future. Black people especially need to see ourselves in the future. No longer does an oppressive vision for our lives overshadow the lives we as Black people define and design for ourselves. If you want Black people to activate the AfroFuture you gotta show ‘em what it looks like. MORE

  • We Got Next

  • Black Zodiac

  • Olmechatron

  • The Harbinger

  • Afrotopia I

  • Cosmic Listening

This exhibition features works from a few of Stacey’s community and Afrofuturism-based collaborations. Afrofuturism is a term utilized for many lines of thinking regarding Black futures. Regarding “Future Spaces in Community Places,” this exhibition centers around the ideas of practical Afrofuturism. Meaning Afrofuturism that meets the daily needs of those who partake in it.

During this exhibition we invite the campus, and the surrounding community to engage the work and the space through collaborative programming that is free, open, and accessible to the public. MORE

The exhibit includes:

Star Gazers features the works of poet Shaya “Chocolate Star” Robinson and Stacey as they illustrate a young imaginative Black girl who dives deep in her journal to explore self-esteem, Black girlhood, and ancestry.

BLACKMAU a collaboration along with Kamau “DJ KamauMau” Grantham examines Black liberated futures through surrealism where the ideas of agency, sovereignty, and other spaces are paramount.

Kofi Bazzell-Smith is an artist, professional boxer, storyteller, and educator. His area is Japanese manga (comics), which he has studied in Japan and produces in both English and Japanese.

John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. He examines the visual culture of race in various media.

Ascension of Black Stillness consists of 10 multimedia artist’s collections that look at Afrofuturist philosophy through a multi-lens discipline. As an exhibition the works tell a variety of stories that imagine parallel universes, alternate realities, and “what if” scenarios that stem specifically through the idea of still photography and its alterations. With media consisting of holograms, motion graphics, animation, and print images, the exhibition will highlight the various conversations Black artists are having about the need for agency in actualizing our own liberated futures.

This exhibition will consists of multimedia artists whose collections look at Afrofuturist philosophy, theory and practice through a multi-lens discipline. Artists include: Kamau Grantham, Krista Franklin, Manzel Bowman,  Quentin VerCetty, Nettrice Gaskins, Anne Johnson, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Ricardo Iamuuri, Wayne Hodge, Tokie Rome-Taylor. More

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