Afrofuturist Fashion + Ritual Design
Introduction to Afrofuturism, ritual design frameworks, electronic circuits, and NFC technology. Course culminated in the development in groups of a garment/talisman and a ritual in which it participates, informed by the ideas of Afrofuturism.
A 2-week intensive (semester equivalent) for undergraduate students in Fashion Design, Industrial Design, and Multimedia Design at the Laba Douala Academy of Fine Arts held in January-February 2024.
Afrofuturism sits at the “intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation,” in the words of Ytasha L. Womack, author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. The movement spans an enormous field of creative inquiry and artistic output in visual, written, sonic, and experiential media. Pioneered by largely African diaspora artists, it has more recently catalyzed a growing Afri-futurist movement rooted in the practices of indigenous African artists.
In this course, we’ll focus specifically on the design possibilities enabled by the incorporation of wearable technologies and Afrofuturist and Afrifuturist sensibilities into fashion design.The relatively wide availability of opensource hardware including in conjunction with reused and recycled materials opens new possibility spaces to manifest long-standing Afrofuturist ideas around technologies of liberation, transhumanism, animism, and beyond. At the same time, how are/can contemporary and emerging Afrofuturists subverting the motifs and mechanisms of Western technology altogether?
Learning Outcomes
Opensource Design
You’ll be able to explain the tenets
of the opensource software/hardware movement and relate them to Afrofuturist practices, intellectual property, traditional knowledge, and creative culture.
Afrofuturist Aesthetics
You’ll be able to describe the major tenets of Afrofuturism and compare them to your own beliefs, experiences, traditions, and creative process.
Sociocultural Context
You will be able to contextualize Afrofuturism within broader cultural and historical frameworks, discerning its intersections with social, political, and artistic movements including in Africa, and relate these concepts to contemporary fashion practices and sociocultural movements.
Critical Analysis of Rituals
You will develop the ability to critically analyze and deconstruct various rituals from diverse cultures and contexts. You’ll be able to apply ritual design frameworks to to analyze a variety of social practices, evaluating their cultural significance and underlying symbolism.
Creative Technology
You’ll be able to describe how various technologies can be integrated into fashion design, including electronics and NFC chips, and explore
how they can be used in creative expression and communication. You’ll understand the basic principles of
electrical circuits, and apply them towards creating fabric circuits.
Design Thinking
Working collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams, you will employ the design process from the concept stage to realization, and be able to justify your creative decisions to a multidisciplinary audience.
Ethical Sourcing + Sustainability
You will explore ethical considerations in material sourcing and demonstrate an understanding of sustainable practices by integrating reused materials in the design process, while considering their environmental and social impacts. You’ll be able to identify a variety of selection criteria that impact how you source and manipulate reused materials.
