History of the Afro-Surrealism
Afro-Surrealism is a literary and artistic movement. Amiri Baraka coined the phrase in 1974 to describe Henry Dumas's writing. The renowned Afro-Surreal Manifesto, written by D. Scot Miller in 2009, contains the famous line: "Afro-Surrealism sees that all "others" who create from their actual, lived experience are surrealists." Afro-Surrealism is distinguished from Surrealism and Afro-Futurism in the manifesto. The manifesto outlines ten principles that underpin Afro-Surrealism, including the notion that "Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past" and the idea that "Afro-Surreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it."
The main theme of Afro-Surrealism is augmentation—getting past the numerous challenges that have shaped our history. It is used and embodied in the poetry, music, film, photography, and the visual arts.
The Surrealism Movement In Africa
Surrealism, in the opinion of Moroccan-Ghanaian artist David Alabo, is the ideal genre for expressing the complex and esoteric experience of Blackness. Similar to how writers use language, it enables an artist to express unfiltered thoughts and emotions in their work.
To produce his striking images, he employs VR headsets, 3D sculpting software, and a variety of digital editing tools. His sci-fi imagery, where African landscapes take on an alien quality and moons and planets loom in starry galaxies or faded dusky skies, fits the medium well. His work is not about escapism but empowerment, even though he explores Black identity through these alternative, unconventional landscapes.
The spirit of the African arts
Afro-surrealism is a part of the black arts movement that takes our world and creates a different scenescape that is still somewhat connected to this one, giving black artists the space to be as weird and free as they'd like to express their feelings of worry, liberty, and injustice. The entire movement of black abstract arts is referred to as the Black Speculative Arts Movement, or BSAM. Afro-surrealism was given recognition by BSAM, which put it at the forefront of the black arts movement.
The African Music
In a celestial alternate reality where race is only a construct that restricts those with an inferiority complex, artists like Sun-Ra interact with audiences. Sun-Ra, a jazz musician known for his energetic performances with his arkestra (possibly a reference to Dumas' Ark), was an example of afro-surrealism and futurism, demonstrating the similarity between surrealism and futurism to Anderson's assertion. Sun-Ra said to Joel Rose on NPR, "Since I don't consider myself a human, I'm a spiritual being myself." Although he was quickly corrected, what if he was on to something? What if Sun-Ra has more knowledge of the existence of blackness in America or even on Earth than Dumas does? In her book "AFROFUTURISM," author Yatasha Womack delves deeply into the worlds of both afro-futurism and afro-surrealism, how they relate to one another, and the effects they have on society. She explains both genres and discusses their cultural significance. African Americans are, in a very real sense, the offspring of alien abductees, according to Mark Derry, as quoted by Yatasha Womack in her book AFROFUTURISM. This is an illustration of how surrealism and life can combine to create a "human" who rejects the constructs that others impose on him. Sun-Ra fully embraces this afro-futuristic aesthetic, rejecting the hardships associated with a typical black lifestyle and asserting his identity as an alien. Sun-Ra discovered spirituality beyond the eurocentric norms of religion and Americanness, even beyond this world.
The African Cinema
It's important to recognize African filmmakers who contributed to the growth and advancement of this movement, which is receiving more and more attention from the rest of the world. Here is a quick overview of the works of three African surrealist filmmakers.
In his 1980 essay Dark Days, James Baldwin posed the question, "What happens [...] when a reality finds itself on a collision course with a fantasy? For the most part, white people in this country have turned into sleepwalkers. This statement rings true in today's globalized world beyond the boundaries of America, and the Afro-surrealist movement provides a solution to this paradox. The Afrosurrealist aesthetic finds itself in a rather unique space to communicate Black issues through the language of fantasy: a world that Baldwin's statement suggests White people are all too familiar with, even though the sole goal of Black art should not be to speak to White people.
The fantastical, the earthly, the whimsical, and beyond are all included in the surreal. It is frequently regarded as an aesthetic with enormous symbolic potential. The surreal has always been a key element in African storytelling, whether it be through tales passed down to us from our ancestors, records kept by griots (a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who uphold an oral history tradition in parts of West Africa), or the maximalist Nollywood, images of the early 2000s projected through our TV screens, riddled with lightning and floating orbs.
Négritude, a literary theory created by Senegalese intellectuals in the 1930s, can be linked to Afro-Surrealism. Because of its many ambiguous definitions, Afro-Surrealist artifacts can be categorized as belonging to several different art movements. Through the use of eerie and fantastical imagery, it exposes the realities and absurdities of the Black experience, from Sun-Ra's intergalactic croons and melodies to Boots Riley's captivating 2018 film "Sorry To Bother You." When we return our attention to the continent, however, the recognition and documentation of Afro-surrealist works in cinema [and beyond] begins to dwindle.
OUSMANE SEMBENE: BLACK GIRL [1966]
With its roots in Négritude, it's no surprise that tracing Afro-Surrealism back to legendary Senegalese filmmaker Ousman Sembene's debut feature film 'Black Girl' is a given. This stunning black-and-white film aims to highlight the absurdity of Black life in neocolonial France's deeply racist society. It follows Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who takes a job as a babysitter in Nice. The final act of the film treads a fine line between reality and the surreal. An African mask plays an important role in the film. The mask is used to demonstrate the gap between European and African cultures. In the first act, we see a young Senegalese boy experimenting with the mask. However, once the mask is removed from the boy and given as a gift to a French couple, it changes from a child's toy to an ornament that must be displayed. Her French employer returns to Dakar to retrieve Diouana's belongings after driving her to suicide. The child from the first act wears the mask as a face mask and hauntingly follows the Frenchman back to his flight. This final scene establishes the film as a metaphor for the relationship between the West and postcolonial Africa, alluding to a time when the chickens may finally come home to roost.
FANTA REGINA NACRO: KONATE’S GIFT [1999]
Fanta Regina Nacro's mere presence as an artist is revolutionary. She was the first Burkinabe woman to direct a film. In her younger years, she dreamt of serving her community as a midwife but later decided to pursue a career as a filmmaker. She co-founded the African Guild of Directors and Producers. Her 1999 film Konate's Gift delves into women's roles in West African society, using folklore and tradition to explore power dynamics in romantic relationships and bedroom politics at the height of Africa's HIV crisis. Though the film is mostly naturalistic, there is one scene in which a tree grows condoms rather than fruit. This fusion of fantasy and nature demonstrates Nacro's talent for surrealist imagery, which appears throughout his work.
NUOTAMA FRANCES BODOMO: AFRONAUTS [2014]
The surreal is a mingling of the fantastical, earthly, whimsical, and beyond. It is widely regarded as having enormous symbolic power and potential. The surreal has always played a central role in African storytelling, whether through stories passed down to us from our ancestors, archived by griots [a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain an oral history tradition in parts of West Africa], or in the maximalist Nollywood - pictures from the early 2000s projected through our TV screens, riddled with lightning and floating orbs.
