Black to the Future: Reimagining Now
Osborne Macharia
GPP Photo Week | Exhibition
One of the region's longest running photography festivals, GPP Photo Week champions photography as a visual medium which engages audiences in dialogue while providing unique opportunities to share nuanced perspectives and alternative histories. The core of the festival is educational, with workshops, talks and masterclasses that shape and inspire tomorrow's visual storytellers.
Each year the festival begins with an exciting evening unveiling multiple new photography exhibitions in Dubai's cultural district, Alserkal Avenue. I was responsible for the selecting, curating, and producing this exhibition in addition to four other exhibitions for the festival including works by Laura El-Tantawy, Jalal Sepehr, and Khalik Allah.
Osborne Macharia
Born and raised in Kenya, Osborne Macharia is a self-taught photographer whose photographic style embraces Afrofuturism. Originally coined in Mark Dery’s 1994 article “Black to the Future”, today’s Afrofuturism is no longer fixated on space travel, mysticism, and extraterrestrials, but instead aims on re-imagine the present - one with equal representation, equal opportunity, and a roadmap for the future.
A combination of two independent works, titled Magadi and Nyanye, Osborne Macharia’s exhibition, Black to the Future | Reimagining Now, introduces the viewer to seven transcendental women who lead the charge toward a better tomorrow.
The series Magadi describes three imagined women who are former female circumcisers. Having abandoned their former practice, they have built a fashion empire that serves as a refuge for young women escaping early marriage, offering education and skills for their future livelihood. Meanwhile, the series titled Nyanye portrays three theoretical powerhouse leaders - elderly women who have held positions of political and economic influence. Through both projects, we are given an opportunity to reimagine the present and forecast a future where women of any age, and people of any color, can be celebrated as empowered leaders.
About the Artist
Osborne Macharia is self-taught visual artist working in both still photography as well as video. Born and raised in Kenya, Macharia lives and works from Nairobi.
With an Afrofuturist's eye, Macharia's work celebrates culture and identity through fictional narratives that aim to redefine our vision of the future, and indeed the present. Through story-telling his imagery speaks of social inclusion, tackling issues of inequality, gender bias, and the misrepresentation of minorities and marginalized communities. Macharia's work has an intense magnetism, drawing in a wide audience to whom he communicates a powerful message of equality.
See more of Osborne Macharia's work here.