To many, the future may be so dim right now that imagining any future is a pretty punk-rock thing to do. Apt, perhaps, since to many futurists it is now a truism that we’ll need to slog through the current cyberpunk dystopia in order to get to even a marginally survivable solarpunk world.

If that’s true, then an indispensable resource for these futurist imaginings is afrofuturism. Afrofuturism imagines future worlds that center Black people who have historically been invisible in science fiction. To imagine such a world Afrofuturism has required the daring, courage, vision, destabilization that we need right now.

The artist Manzel Bowman manifests an astonishing afrofuturist vision in his collages. Here’s more from Sci-Fi-O-Rama:

American artist Manzel Bowman dreams of a future where African tradition spreads across the stars. In his work ancient mysticism and space-age technology collide creating new, psychedelic forms.

Bowman takes clear inspiration from the aesthetics of the afrofuturist pioneers of the 1970s and 1980s; musicians like Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Parliament, and Afrika Bambaataa. In his work there is a similar ethos of collaging a proud vision of Black past and present with an optimistic future. The results are captivating – both exuberant and mysterious.

See and learn more!