Afrofuturism exhibit opens at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s much-anticipated exhibit on Afrofuturism opens Friday.

Why it matters: Afrofuturism, a term coined in the 1990s, is having a moment, with spotlights in recent movies, literature and in the food scene, too.

Context: Afrofuturism is a genre that centers Black people in space or in a fantasy setting, or in relation to technology that allows one to escape slavery and discrimination.

• Sheree Renée Thomas, a Black science fiction writer and editor, tells Axios the genre imagines a futuristic world in which Black cultures thrive among evolving technology, social practices and values: It's "a very revolutionary thought, in a lot of ways, particularly in American culture."

What’s happening: The 4,000-square-foot exhibit showcases more than 100 objects from music, television, comics and more.

• The "History of Black Futures" area describes how enslaved people imagined their futures.
• "The New Black Futures" area looks at Afrofuturism in the modern era.
• And "Infinite Possibilities" connects Afrofuturism to space, technology, digital activism and popular media.

🎸 Highlights include:

• Chadwick Boseman’s "Black Panther" costume;
• Octavia Butler’s typewriter;
• George Clinton’s wig from Parliament-Funkadelic;
• And Vernon Reid’s guitar.

What they’re saying: "Afrofuturism has also long been a mix of celebration and resistance, musicality and theatricality, achievement and survival," says the museum’s director, Kevin Young.

The big picture: The genre can be traced back to W.E.B. DuBois' writings in the 1800s but wasn't coined until the 1990s.

• American pop culture has embraced it in recent years. See: the "Black Panther" movies and Colson Whitehead's Afrofuturist novel, "The Underground Railroad," a story about a literal underground train system during slavery that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art premiered an Afrofuturism exhibit in 2021, while Bronze, a hot D.C. restaurant that opened this year, has an Afrofuturist theme.

How-to: The exhibition will be open for a year. Timed passes are required to visit the museum.