Trans* poet, curator, and artist Duplan will present his poetry, performance, media and curatorial practice with the larger movement of Afrofuturist artistic practices, in conversation with the audience. Duplan is author of Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture and Take This Stallion.
Discussants: Eileen Isagon Skyers and Clayton Colmon (Cultural Studies, CGU & Associate Director of Instructional Design, Arts & Sciences Online Learning, University of Pennsylvania).
Music Playlist gathered by Clayton Colmon for AfroFutures: An Afternoon With Anaïs Duplan.
Afrofuturism-Selected Bibliography
Image caption: Thinh Nguyen, “Searching For Revolutionary,” 2019, Found umbrellas, 100 x 60 x 60 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. © Thinh Nguyen. CGU MFA.
Speaker
An DuplanAnaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and St. Joseph’s College. |
Clay Colmon is an educator, writer, and patternist. He teaches at CGU and at the University of Pennsylvania while also serving as Associate Director of Instructional Design for Penn’s College of Liberal and Professional Studies. His work embraces the notion that lifelong learning is integral to any sustainable social system. Clay believes that Black futures offer ways of learning, imagining, and becoming that can help us get free. Over the years, he has written and taught at the intersection of Black Studies, Queer Studies, Science Fiction Studies, and Digital Pedagogy—following an impulse toward reparative worldbuilding work that weds critical play with pedagogical praxis.
Eileen Isagon Skyers
Eileen Isagon Skyers was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in Tampa, Florida. An artist, writer, and curator, she has worked with contemporary art and non-profit arts organizations including David Zwirner, The Whitney Museum, Rhizome at the New Museum, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Digital Museum of Digital Art (DiMoDA). Her moving image work has been exhibited in the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Mexico. Her first book, Vanishing Acts, was published by LINK Editions (Brescia, Italy), and she has performed at American Medium (New York, NY), Downs & Ross (New York, NY), Housing Works Books (New York, NY), and Shoot the Lobster (New York, NY), among others. Skyers holds a BA in Philosophy and BFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida (Tampa, FL), and an MA in Critical Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art, (Portland, OR). She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.