Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, this is an expressive exploration of Black popular culture at its most wildly imaginative, artistically ambitious and politically urgent. In the Black Fantastic assembles art and imagery from across the African diaspora that embraces ideas of the mythic and the speculative. Neither Afrofuturism nor Magic Realism, but inhabiting its own universe, In the Black Fantastic brings to life a cultural movement that conjures otherworldly visions out of the everyday Black experience - and beyond - looking at how speculative fictions in Black art and culture are boldly reimagining perspectives on race, gender, identity and the body in the 21st century. Transcending time, space and genre to span art, design, fashion architecture, film, literature and popular culture from African myth to future fantasies and beyond, this vital, timely and compelling publication is an expressive exploration of Black popular culture at its most wildly imaginative, artistically ambitious and politically urgent.

Foreword by Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward Gallery Introduction: The Black Fantastic Chapter 1 Invocation: A Summoning of Spirits Extract 1: Old Slavery Seen Through Modern Eyes: Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Haile Gerima's Sankofa, by Adriano Elia African Cosmologies and Black Feminism, by Kameelah Martin Chapter 2 Migration: Journeys Across Sea and Space Extract 2: Afronauts: Race in Space, by Ian Bourland The Space for Race, by Michelle Commander Chapter 3 Liberation: Dreams of Freedom Extract 3: Afrofutures: Africa and the Aesthetics of Black Revolution, by Tobias Wofford Film, Play and Reading Lists