The Iyapo Repository Project is concerned with addressing the relative lack of representation of Africa and people of African descent in contemporary projections of the future.
Iyapo Repository is a future resource library that will house a collection of digital and physical artifacts created to affirm and project the African diaspora. It offers opportunities for African descendants to generate and build technological cultural artifacts of their future. The project is situated between physical and digital spaces, between the present and the future. It asks us to reimagine notions of race, identity & culture through technological artifacts as they travel through time & space.
In this 90 minute workshop, artists Ayodamola Okunseinde and Salome Asega will ask participants to create designs for future technological artifacts. The sketches and drawings developed in these workshops will be featured in the Iyapo Repository. A select few of the designs will be constructed and exhibited and a 5 minute sci-fi film incorporating the artifact will be made. The films serve as means of situating the object in context of the time, space, & culture of the future Africans that use the artifacts.
Where: RhizomeDC (6950 Maple St NW, DC)
When: Saturday, January 30 2015, 3PM
Who: Adults (18+) who identify as black or of African descent
Cost: Free (please RSVP using the link below)
This workshop is the first of several Afro-futurism programs at RhizomeDC. A follow-up General Audience progam later in the spring will include a presentation on the entire Iyapo Repoistory project as well as an exhibition of selected objects, films and more.
Ayodamola Okunseinde is an artist and interactive designer living and working in New York. He studied Visual Arts and Philosophy at Rutgers the State University of New Jersey where he earned his B.A. His works range from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works and explorations of Afrofuturism. Okunseinde holds an MFA in Design and Technology from The New School, Parsons School of Design in New York where he is currently an adjunct faculty member. www.ayo.io
Salome Asega is a Brooklyn-based artist and researcher whose practice celebrates dissensus and multivocality. Through participatory research, she works collaboratively to build interactive installations and to develop odd wearables. She is the co-host of speculative talk show Hyperopia: 20/30 Vision on bel-air radio and the Assistant Director of POWRPLNT, a digital art collaboratory. Salome received her MFA from Parsons at The New School in Design and Technology and her BA from New York University in Social Practice.