Black Space and Branding the AfroFuture: The Rippling Effect of Schaffer Library’s AfroFuturist Exhibitions:

Leveraging the library space to help realize the college\u27s goals of diversity, the Access Services Librarian and the Director and Curator of Art Collections and Exhibitions sought to address the lack of racial/ethnic representation on campus through a multimedia exhibit and art installation that brought our diverse collections to the forefront. The exhibit Black Space: Reading (and writing) Ourselves into the Future highlighted our library\u27s speculative book, film and music collections, while the art installation Branding the Afrofuture featured political and celebratory digital print collages with graffiti wall drawings to present black cultural production through an Afrofuturist lens. We used AfroFuturism as a powerful, intentional mechanism to place black/brown images and traditionally marginalized perspectives at the center. These exhibitions established a place for students of color to be part of the narrative in a PWI and offered interpretive tools whereby black intellectual and cultural production could take center stage for academic engagement.https://digitalworks.union.edu/diversityinclusioncourse_posters_2019/1002/thumbnail.jp