Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room

A space of technological innovation and transmutation, this kitchen is where the imagined residents of this home used their knowledge of science and magic to develop a means of time travel, which has allowed them to gather works of art from across time and space. For centuries, ingenious and secretive Venetian glassmakers used raw materials from areas of North Africa and the Middle East to produce sparkling, inventive glassware. Starting in the fifteenth century, glass beads made in Venice were exchanged for goods, services, and enslaved people. This kitchen's occupants reimagine the long-standing generative and exploitative relationship between Venice and Africa by repurposing these innovative objects for their own use.

A space of technological innovation and transmutation, this kitchen is where the imagined residents of this home used their knowledge of science and magic to develop a means of time travel, which has allowed them to gather works of art from across time and space. For centuries, ingenious and secretive Venetian glassmakers used raw materials from areas of North Africa and the Middle East to produce sparkling, inventive glassware. Starting in the fifteenth century, glass beads made in Venice were exchanged for goods, services, and enslaved people. This kitchen's occupants reimagine the long-standing generative and exploitative relationship between Venice and Africa by repurposing these innovative objects for their own use.

Roots, barks, fruits, nectars, leaves, and stems. Stewed, infused, distilled, decocted, crushed, and burned. Drunk, eaten, or applied as a poultice. Herbalists and healers of African descent have long developed treatments for both body and soul that tend to the natural and supernatural causes of illness. Here, the imagined conjure women who occupy this home follow generations of historical healers and transmute plant matter into cures by adapting traditional belief systems, Indigenous plant knowledge, and the types of European equipment on view. Their everyday alchemy of medicine aligns science, magic, and spirituality in order to protect this home and its collection of cultural treasures.

Roots, barks, fruits, nectars, leaves, and stems. Stewed, infused, distilled, decocted, crushed, and burned. Drunk, eaten, or applied as a poultice. Herbalist and healers of African descent have long developed treatments for both body and soul that tend to the natural and supernatural causes of illness. Here, the imagined conjure women who occupy this home follow generations of historical healers and transmute plant matter into cures by adapting traditional belief systems, Indigenous plant knowledge, and the types of European equipment on view. Their everyday alchemy of medicine aligns science, magic, and spirituality in order to protect this home and its collection of cultural treasures.

A space of technological innovation and transmutation, this kitchen is where the imagined residents of this home used their knowledge of science and magic to develop a means of time travel, which has allowed them to gather works of art from across time and space. For centuries, ingenious and secretive Venetian glassmakers used raw materials from areas of North Africa and the Middle East to produce sparkling, inventive glassware. Starting in the fifteenth century, glass beads made in Venice were exchanged for goods, services, and enslaved people. This kitchen's occupants reimagine the long-standing generative and exploitative relationship between Venice and Africa by repurposing these innovative objects for their own use.

Often fashioned from materials such as wood, brass, and earthenware, plunger-style butter churns were essential in domestic spaces. After collecting fresh milk, a worker would set it aside to ferment and allow time for the cream to rise to the top before it could be churned. Folklore from around the world maintains that exhausted workers would attempt to accelerate the labor-intensive process by singing songs and chants as they used the dasher (the pole portion of the tool) to beat the cream until the desired yellow fat separated from the buttermilk. "Come, butter come," they'd sing. "Peter [is] standing at the gate, waiting for a butter cake. come, butter, come."

This vessel was made by Thomas W. Commeraw, a free African American potter working in Manhattan's Lower East Side during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Commeraw operated a kiln in Corlears Hook, the area along the shoreline of the East River now between the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridge. Like most stoneware of the period, Commeraw's vessels were largely utilitarian and embellished with incised decoration accented with a cobalt glaze. The distinctive foliate design found on both sides of this jar are typical of Commeraw's wares and distinguish his vessels from those of other New York City potters of the early 19th century. Commeraw's is the largest body of work by a free Black potter during the antebellum period.

Roots, barks, fruits, nectars, leaves, and stems. Stewed, infused, distilled, decocted, crushed, and burned. Drunk, eaten, or applied as a poultice. Herbalists and healers of African descent have long developed treatments for both body and soul that tend to the natural and supernatural causes of illness. Here, the imagined conjure women who occupy this home follow generations of historical healers and transmute plant matter into cures by adapting traditional belief systems, Indigenous plant knowledge, and the types of European equipment on view. Their everyday alchemy of medicine aligns science, magic, and spirituality in order to protect this home and its collection of cultural treasures.

Designed as a site to which mystical force might be drawn, power figures were the collaborative creations of sculptors and ritual specialists (banganga, singular nganga). Banganga placed powerful medicinal matter called bilongo - whose mineral, plant, and animal ingredients were chosen for their cultural significance - into a carved receptacle, transforming the vessel into an instrument capable of curing illness, settling disputes, safeguarding the peace, and punishing wrongdoers. The numerous blades and nails embedded in the figure's body attest to its extensive use in the practice of a an nganga, who acted as an intercessor on behalf of his clientele.

The kingdom of Dahomey (in present-day Republic of Benin) began participating in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century. The enslaved protagonist of Lucille Clifton's 1969 poem "ca'lines prayer" recalls this history and makes a plea to Temanja, orisha of the sea, to whom some captives called out for protection before jumping from slave ships: "remember me from wydah / remember the child / running across Dahomey / ... / and set me in the rivers of your glory." While many captives longed for spiritual flight back home, Dahomean royals often bore accoutrements such as this bird staff to symbolize a different kind of ascension: their increasing power over the region's people.

The Grassfields region of western Cameroon was a prosperous nexus of trade that gave rise to numerous wealthy kingdoms. Their rulers have long been important patrons of the arts, commissioning lavish palace complexes and regalia for themselves and members of their courts. This type of small, portable throne is typically used for private occasions, and the leopard that forms its support signifies the seat's royal pedigree. Bamileke and Bamun master beaders collaborated with sculptors in the creation of such works. Trimmed with cowrie shells sourced from the Indian Ocean, this work was fashioned with small glass beads that were made in Venice and Prague and exported to West Africa.

In the Grassfields chiefdoms of Cameroon, the fon (king), mafo (queen mother), and their descendants preside over formal ceremonies at court, demonstrating their wealth, spiritual and political power, and prestige. As a gesture of welcome to visitors, as well as during rituals of sorrow and commemoration, libations of palm wine, a cloudy-colored beverage made from the fermented sap of palm trees, are often poured from prestige vessels such as this one to honor sacred deities, spirits, and ancestors. Crafted from a gourd, this ornate version is overlaid with exquisite multicolored glass beadwork featuring serpent heads at the summit and zigzag and geometric patterning, which are emblems of royal power and abundance.

Brass crucifixes cast by Kongo artists reflect the influence Christianity has had on Kongo culture. In 1490, less than a decade after the first Portuguese explorers encountered the then vast and thriving Kongo kingdom, missionaries were sent there to establish a Christian settlement. Although the king and his successor converted almost immediately, Christianity never replaced traditional religious beliefs. Instead, Christian ritual objects acquired many of the same meanings and functions of the charms and power objects they were meant to supersede. Kongo chiefs received them along with other insignia of office and used them to proclaim their power as lawgivers and judges.

Although based on European models, the crucifixes made by Kongo artists also acquired Kongo forms. They were usually cast in an open mold using metal obtained from manillas, brass rings imported from Europe. Praying figures, sometimes reduced to disembodied heads as on the arms of this cross, were often added to the composition. A few incised lines depict Christ's ribs and his knotted loincloth, which are more recognizable here than in later examples. Chirst's exaggerated, splayed hands and feet--joined in a single, five-toed limb--enhance the power of this image.

A space of technological innovation and transmutation, this kitchen is where the imagined residents of this home used their knowledge of science and magic to develop a means of time travel, which has allowed them to gather works of art from across time and space. For centuries, ingenious and secretive Venetian glassmakers used raw materials from areas of Norht Africa and the Middle East to produce sparkling, inventive glassware. Starting in the fifteenth century, glass beads made in Venice were exchanged for goods, services, and enslaved people. This kitchen's occupants reimagine the long-standing generative and exploitative relationship between Venice and Africa by repurposing these innovative objects for their own use.

Magdalene Odundo's vessels blend multiple associations and meanings in a manner that makes them simultaneously familiar and novel. Using the ancient coiling method, she begins by pulling a cone of clay upward as its middle is hollowed out to form the body of the vessel. Variations in the voluptuous body are expressed in the profile, gesture of the neck, and protruding nodules and then transformed and finished through firing. A partial reduction of oxygen created the gray/black tones of this piece, but the exact outcome is never completely controllable, adding an element of chance to the artistic process. The Kenyan-born artist's work is often linked to the pottery traditions of Africa. While a connection seems implicit, Odundo did not begin working in clay until she moved to Britain.

This print is sixth in a series of fifteen linoleum cuts that Catlett created to commemorate Black women’s labor and to honor renowned heroines. Born Isabella Baumfree to an enslaved family in nineteenth-century Ulster County, New York, Sojourner Truth became an influential antislavery activist, memoirist, and feminist. Catlett shows her as a commanding figure, filling the picture plane, who stares out toward the viewer with a penetrating gaze. Truth’s strong, somewhat oversized hands—one points heavenward while the other rests next to a Bible—testify to her faith and commitment to the cause of abolition. One senses the artist’s own hand at work in the deep, direct incising of lines that characterizes her printmaking technique.

Among the objects recovered at the Seneca Village site was a small hair comb molded from Malaysian gutta-percha resin. Both the Seneca Village comb and this ornate vulcanite display piece, made from rubber harvested in West Africa, were products of a nineteenth-century colonial robber economy in which manufacturers exploited natural materials and Indigenous labor in the European colonies. In the Unites States, where such finished objects were bought and sold, the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act meant that many free or self-emancipated Black New Yorkers were again in danger of kidnapping and enslavement. This comb's border in the shape of a short link chain powerfully resonates with this painful history of bondage.

In his sculptures and installations, Cole gives discarded objects new life. Here, he connects seemingly fragmented and separate histories - of conquest and land appropriation, enslavement, diaspora, migration, joy, and pain. Transforming high-heeled leather shoes into an object inspired by nineteenth-century masks from Cameroon, Cole perceives the "soul/sole" memories that remain in the shoes: the places numerous unknown wearers have walked, along with their skin cells, sweat, and very essence. In doing so, he suggests how woven together American lives truly are and reminds us how these histories impact our present moment and future in complex ways that we can fail to recognize if we do not take time to notice.

This portrait is based on a 1982 photograph of Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first woman and the first Black woman to serve as a deep-sea diver in the U.S. Army. Wearing a massive diving suit and helmet, Crabtree sits as if enthroned, according regal status to her feats of exploration. Transit over and through seawater also evokes a broader historical narrative that began with the transatlantic slave trade across the liminal space of the ocean. In recognition of the Atlantic seabed as a place of cultural significance, teams of Black scuba divers work today to locate and record historical information about sunken slave ships and to place memorials acknowledging the victims of slavery.

Throughout Simpson’s practice the language of hairstyle has played an important role. For the artist, "hair is a cipher of identity" and exploring its centrality to African American culture informed another query for Simpson: "I had questions about representation and what we learn about the subject." In recent years the artist has used images from 1960s and 70s advertisements in historical copies of Ebony and Jet, the monthlies she grew up reading and that informed her "sense of thinking about being black in America." In the early 2010s, she first juxtaposed these decoupaged heads with swirls of ink to replace their missing hairdos, then, for the series to which the present collage belongs, Earth & Sky, she interleaved found pages from a mineralogical encyclopedia. Here, a page on malachite is conjoined with a 1964 advertisement for the hair and scalp conditioner Raveen (one can almost make out the tagline "Raveen for lovelier hair" as it scrolls below the portrait). As Elizabeth Alexander’s recent prose poem on Simpson’s collages eloquently states, "Black women are everywhere glorious and unsung. / The black woman is elemental, of the earth, magma, and gem, ‘malachite and azurite.’"

Designs by Archibong - who was born in California to Nigerian parents and trained in Europe - incorporate luxurious and technologically daring materials and influences from folklore, mysticism, astronomy, and music to create a distinctly futuristic aesthetic. This pair of Atlas Dining Chairs are upholstered with African-inspired fabric selected by Ghanian born Fabric Curator Sheliah Botang and Oscar winning Costume Designer Ruth Carter for the movie Black Panther.

Designs by Archibong - who was born in California to Nigerian parents and trained in Europe - incorporate luxurious and technologically daring materials and influences from folklore, mysticism, astronomy, and music to create a distinctly futuristic aesthetic. His Orion side table improbably balances an opulent piece of Italian marble atop delicate, brightly colored glass legs - a feat worthy of its namesake, the vertiginous constellation that brilliantly shines from its perch in the nighttime sky.

Tariku designs ergonomic furniture to support the body and the mind, with aesthetic references drawn from elements of Ethiopian and Black American culture and history. The Afro comb is a tool that has been used across Africa for centuries, both to groom and to signal cultural ties. In the United States it is often linked to notions of cultural pride, particularly during the Black Power movement's emergence in the late 1960s. Used to pick out natural hair into a style that gives the wearer a kind of halo effect, the comb is also popularly worn to assert one's connection to their Black heritage.

Jean-Louis's stunning adaptation of the nineteenth-century corset dress features a gilded brooch at the neck portraying Ezili Dantor, the loa (spirit) of vengeance in Vodou that helped inspire and guide self-liberated insurrectionists during the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Apart from the jewelry, much of this regal dress is sculpted from modest materials - paper sheets and clay - celebrating the creative and radical aspects of the Black imagination, both of which insist on "making a way out of no way." With its bold, saturated colors and generous adornments, the ensemble flaunts Victorian ideals of propriety and allows the assertive wearer to push against gendered and racialized expectations.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby's work begins with a layer of photographic transfers. Her design for this gallery's verdant backdrop combines images of the 1856 hand-drawn survey map of Seneca Village and nineteenth-century ambrotype portraits of Black New Yorkers, which are then juxtaposed with more contemporary images from the African diaspora. Overlaying this imagery is the lush foliage of an okra plant, a crop with nourishing power and potent symbolism. Originating in sub-Saharan West Africa and carried across the sea during the Middle Passage, okra embodies not only that brutal displacement but also the multitude of culinary and cultural traditions that have endured and thrived on American shores.

This new work was made especially for the room by Jenn Nkiru, a British-born filmmaker of Nigerian descent. Her videos celebrate the vibrant creativity and speculative vision of the African diaspora while exploring what she calls, "cosmic archaeology," a potentially mystical connection to history through visual memory.

The work of activist, filmmaker, and writer Tourmaline involves deep research into under-acknowledged and underrepresented histories, particularly those that center queer and trans historical figures of color in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New York, from Seneca Village to Stonewall. In this self-portrait, she inhabits the possibilities of space travel for journeying to a utopian setting that might provide respite from the dangers of the present moment.

The work of activist, filmmaker, and writer Tourmaline involves deep research into under-acknowledged and underrepresented histories, particularly those that center queer and trans historical figures of color in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New York, from Seneca Village to Stonewall. In this self-portrait, she inhabits the persona of a nineteenth-century trans person, drawing inspiration, in part, from the lived experience of 1830s trans sex worker Mary Jones. Whereas the contemporary New York press disparaged Jones as a "man-monster," Tourmaline imagines the speculative possibility of her life in a bucolic, utopian setting (much like that found in Seneca Village), which provides respite from the dangers and disease of a crowded and growing metropolis.

Designs by Archibong - who was born in California to Nigerian parents and trained in Europe - incorporate luxurious and technologically daring materials and influences from folklore, mysticism, astronomy, and music to create a distinctly futuristic aesthetic. This sparkling chandelier combines the centuries-old practice of hand blowing glass with a more contemporary palette of vibrant and sensuous colors.

Lugo is renowned for his vibrant reinterpretations of eighteenth-century European porcelain forms, which he reimagines through the lens of contemporary hip-hop culture and embellishes with grafitti and kente prestige cloth patterns. His works center the portraits of heroes whose visages do not often adorn fine porcelain or whose stories are too often absent from such luxurious wares. Here, nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Tubman faces the kitchen and contemporary singer-songwriter Erykah Badu looks into the living room; together, they reflect the ways that the kitchen acts as a site of temporal confluence - a merging of past and present into future possibilities.

The London-based designer Ilori creates furniture that is both functional and capable of telling stories. For a 2016 project entitled A Swimming Pool of Dreams, he refurbished a suite of six found chairs to embody the hopes and dreams of the congregants who traveled with him and his family on trips to the Margate seaside, which were organized by the church of his Nigerian-immigrant parents. Among this close-knit group was an auntie who deeply longed for children; her wish is captured by this seat. The beautiful and brightly patterned wing hinged to the side symbolizes both her desire to add to her family and its fruition.

Tshikare's design process is one of self-exploration, motivated by the desire to allow Indigenous knowledge to surface what has been obscured by centuries of colonization. Using materials native to South Africa, such as wood and grasses, and techniques passed down from his grandmother, such as charring and weaving, Tshikare reimagines a pair of eighteenth-century fauteuils - a type of upholstered French chair introduced during colonization - as a means of reclaiming Tswana culture from European colonial power. Leifo, meaning "fireplace" in the Sotha language, suggests that these chairs are meant to be placed in front of a hearth. The brass beading combines astrological constellations with Zulu pictograms to resemble fire sparks.

Tshikare's design process is one of self-exploration, motivated by the desire to allow Indigenous knowledge to surface what has been obscured by centuries of colonization. Using materials native to South Africa, such as wood and grasses, and techniques passed down from his grandmother, such as charring and weaving, Tshikare reimagines a pair of eighteenth-century fauteuils - a type of upholstered French chair introduced during colonization - as a means of reclaiming Tswana culture from European colonial power. Leifo, meaning "fireplace" in the Sotha language, suggests that these chairs are meant to be placed in front of a hearth, as seen here. The brass beading combines astrological constellations with Zulu pictograms to resemble fire sparks.

Andile Dyalvane and Zizipho Poswa cofounded the Imiso Studio in 2005. Meaning "tomorrows" in the Xhosa language, imiso reflects the philosophy of the studio, which promotes experimentation, collaboration, and more accessible design in the radical hope for a better future. Part of Dyalvane's Africasso collection, a series in which he creatively interprets imagery from folklore passed down by his grandmother, this vessel evokes the feathery wings and piercing gaze of a bird.

For generations, people have met around the kitchen table to share meals, stories, and dreams with one another. Communal gatherings like these are called imbizo in the Xhosa language. To design his table and stools, Maweni drew inspiration from across time and space, from traditional Nguni vessels, which inform his patterns, to futuristic kitchens, where communities of the past and present meet. Here, in this house, knowledge is passed in a cycle, much like the carved rings created by the turning of Maweni's pottery wheel.

For generations, people have met around the kitchen table to share meals, stories, and dreams with one another. Communal gatherings like these are called imbizo in the Xhosa language. To design his table and stools, Maweni drew inspiration from across time and space, from traditional Nguni vessels, which inform his patterns, to futuristic kitchens, where communities of the past and present meet. Here, in this house, knowledge is passed in a cycle, much like the carved rings created by the turning of Maweni's pottery wheel.

For generations, people have met around the kitchen table to share meals, stories, and dreams with one another. Communal gatherings like these are called imbizo in the Xhosa language. To design his table and stools, Maweni drew inspiration from across time and space, from traditional Nguni vessels, which inform his patterns, to futuristic kitchens, where communities of the past and present meet. Here, in this house, knowledge is passed in a cycle, much like the carved rings created by the turning of Maweni's pottery wheel.

Noxolo's form abstracts a magodi, a traditional African hairstyle, which the artist associates with memories of her aunt, for whom the work is named. The bowls stacked atop the piece evoke hair piled high on Noxolo's head, and the bowls on the side reference her fondness for twisting and wrapping her hair into Bantu knots. The massive work was not formed on a pottery wheel but was gathered, coiled, pinched, and smoothed, using precise movements akin to those necessary for realizing the hairstyles they represent. Noxolo is part of Poswa's Magodi series of large-scale, three-dimensional abstract portraits inspired by the community of women that raised her.

Raised as a farmer and herder in the small village of Ngobozana in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Dyalvane creates ceramic works that speak to his deep appreciation for the earth. Umwonyo, which means "crevice" in the Xhosa language, evokes the mountainous landscapes that surround both Ngobozana and Cornwall, England, where Dyalvane made this pot during an artist's residency. The vessel's craggy dips and ridges were formed when his dancing in the studio caused it to collapse, a serendipitous moment that distilled both landscapes into a single artwork and created an energetic link between Dyalvane's past and present.

Kabiru was born in Nairobi's Korogorocho, a neighborhood that borders the city's largest garbage dump. As a child, he began creatively reusing the materials he salvaged, giving potentially obsolete items new meaning. Part of a recent series, Miyale Ya Blue is one of the many transistor radios the artist has retrofitted. In an era when music and other media have migrated online, for Kabiru these objects not only elicit memories of gathering around his grandmother's wireless to hear the news of the day but also are imbued with ancestral, spiritual powers that transport one imaginatively through space and time. The details on this piece evoke the warming rays of the sun (miyale in Swahili).