Curating The End Of The World

Organized by Reynaldo Anderson, Tiffany E. Barber and Stacey Robinson with the Black Speculative Arts Movement, this two-part exhibition brings together an international cadre of artists whose work responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-black violence, climate change, poor governance, trans-humanism, and an accelerating, technologically driven economic system on the verge of collapse.
Curating The End Of The World is an Afrofuturist commentary on the end of our current age and “Cyclical Chaos” as conceived by Sheree Renée Thomas, interrogating the racist pathology and corruption that influences policy around the world. This multi-part exhibition will look at the global existential risks tied to ecology, climate change, anti-blackness, medical apartheid, and responses to the dystopian present.

The exhibition features creative works by Chloe Harrison, Jessi Jumanji, Kinnara : Desi La, Jordan P. Jackson, lovenloops, Zeal Harris, Kimberly Marie Ashby, Stacey Robinson, Patrick Earl Hammie, Jon-Carlos Evans and ReVerse Bullets, Shawanna Davis, Edreys Wajed, La’Nora Boror, Delita Martin, Sherese Francis, John Jennings, Damian Duffy, David Brame, Motherboxx Studios, Muniyra Douglas, Ingrid LaFleur, BLACKMAU, Zeal Harris, Nettrice Gaskins, William Falby, Charles E. Mason, Walidah Imarisha, Stefani Cox, Clinton R. Fluker, PhD, and ZiggZaggerz the Bastard with tobias c. van Veen.

The BLACK SPECULATIVE ARTS MOVEMENT, aka BSAM, emerged in the wake of the Unveiling Visions: Alchemy of The Black Imagination exhibition curated by John Jennings and Reynaldo Anderson at the Schomburg library in New York, 2015.  BSAM is a network of creatives, intellectuals, and artists representing different positions or basis of inquiry including: Afrofuturism, Astro Blackness, Afro-Surrealism, Ethno Gothic, Black Digital Humanities, Black (Afro-future female or African Centered) Science Fiction, The Black Fantastic, Magical Realism, and The Esoteric. Although these positions may be incompatible in some instances they overlap around the term speculative and design; and interact around the nexus of technology and ethics. BSAM L.L.C., founded by Reynaldo Anderson is a yearlong, traveling afrofuturism, comics, film, and art convention held at multiple universities, colleges, domestically and venues abroad.

Dr. Reynaldo Anderson currently serves as an Associate Professor of Communication at Harris-Stowe State University in Saint Louis Missouri and is an executive board member of the Missouri Arts Council. Reynaldo has earned several awards for leadership and teaching excellence and he is currently the Past Chair of the Black Caucus of the National Communication Association (NCA). Reynaldo has not only served as an executive board member of the Missouri Arts Council, he has previously served at an international level working for prison reform with C.U.R.E. International in Douala Cameroon, and as a development ambassador recently assisting in the completion of a library project for the Sekyere Afram Plains district in the country of Ghana. Reynaldo publishes extensively in the area of Afrofuturism, communication studies, and the African diaspora experience. Reynaldo is currently the executive director and co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM), a network of artists, curators, intellectuals and activists. Finally, he is the co-editor of the book Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness published by Lexington books, co-editor of Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent published by Cedar Grove Publishing and The Black Speculative Art Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design (Lexington books, 2019), as well as the co-editor of Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures, a special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.