From animism to Afrofuturism: the Black female body in transit

The Black female body is a contested performative site. This body, as a physical presence, contends with various structures that position it within the sub/liminal. This paper examines the contemporaneity and fluidity of its performance across various geographies and temporalities of its presencing—past and future, home and abroad. I explore three cultural productions, namely Wangechi Mutu’s The End of Carrying All (2015) and The NewOnes Will Free Us (2019), and Fabrice Monteiro’s The Prophecy (2015), to examine the transitions and transgressions of the Black female body. I argue that the figure of the Black woman is entangled in what Harry Garuba calls the “animist unconscious” and “re-enchantment” from its infusions of the past in the present to a transcendence into the future: the post-human era, which recontextualizes how the body is imagined and how it in turn performs in this imaginary from animism to Afrofuturism. I examine the implications of these mobilities and performances on the environment. Drawing ideas from Harry Garuba and Tina Campt, I interrogate how these artists present the figure of the Black female as savior, goddess, mother, and nonhuman/non-sexual being reflected in the emerging dialogues between Africa and the diaspora, in literature and art.