Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction Curated by Nay Haq and Al Cameron The Arnolfini, Bristol, May – July 1, 2012
In this exhibition, curators Haq and Cameron present 10 not necessarily African artists who slyly critique the unabashedly Western-centric traditions of science fiction, and re-frame them via the African continent. Rejecting futurist utopianism, works like Kiluanji Kia Henda’s Icarus 13 (2008) portray failures of progress, while Neill Blomkamp’s Tetra Vaal (2004) and Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi (2009) anticipate failures to come. The object here is not to wholly discourage viewers, but to problematize a contemporary imagination where the West lives for the future while Africa is treated as inseparable from its past.
