We’re so excited to be presenting this event on Afrofuturism and Scotland’s Black diaspora at the Edinburgh International Book Festival!
Join us on 21st August from 1-2pm at the Edinburgh College of Art’s New York Times Theatre (in Sculpture Court) for what’s sure to be a fascinating panel.
UPDATE: This event is now available to watch online at the EIBF website. Cost is Pay What You Can.
How can Afrofuturism help the African diaspora in Scotland engender a better future for today? Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy to reimagine the history of the African diaspora, while invoking hopeful and technically advanced speculative Black futures. This fluid ideology has empowered Black artists including Octavia E Butler, George Clinton, Namwali Serpell and Jean-Michel Basquiat to reconstruct representations of Blackness in popular culture. Today, Eilidh Akilade talks to writer Clementine E. Burnley, artist and researcher Natasha Thembiso Ruwona and writer T L Huchu to discuss the potential that Afrofuturism has to build community in the Black diaspora in Scotland, and to connect on a common past, present and future. Curated by the Scottish BAME Writers Network.
[NOTE: The EIBF website lists Martha Adonai Williams as one of this event’s speakers. Clementine E. Burnley will be appearing instead.]
This is a live event with an author Q&A. Authors and participants will be on stage, in the venue.
Tickets
Where to book: Tickets are available from the EIBF website.
Cost: £14 (£12 concession) for in-person tickets. Pay What You Can to watch the event online.
Other info: The event will be available to watch live online, then on-demand after the event concludes.
Speakers
Clementine E Burnley is a feminist migrant mother, writer and community organiser who lives in Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in Parabola Magazine, the National Flash Fiction Anthology and The Centifictionist. She’s an alumnus of Obsidian Foundation and a 2021 Edwin Morgan Second Life Grantee. She has recently won the Sky Arts RSL Writers award for non-fiction.
Natasha Thembiso Ruwona is a Scottish-Zimbabwean artist, researcher and programmer. They are interested in Afrofuturist storytelling through the poetics of the landscape, working across various media including; digital performance, film, DJing and writing. Their current project Black Geographies, Ecologies and Spatial Practice is an exploration of space, place and the climate as related to Black identities and histories. Natasha is interested in different forms of magic and is in particular drawn to the power of the moon.
TL Huchu is a writer whose short fiction has appeared in publications such as ‘Lightspeed’, ‘Interzone’, ‘AfroSF’ and elsewhere. He is the winner of a Nommo Award for African SF/F, and has been short-listed for the Caine Prize and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. Between projects, he translates fiction from Shona into English and the reverse. “The Library of the Dead” is the first in his Edinburgh Nights series.
Chair
Eilidh Akilade is a Glasgow based English Literature student. She has written for publications such as gal-dem, The Skinny, and Bella Caledonia. Her writing covers a range of topics, primarily culture, intersectional feminism, and race.
