Intro

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so my name’s adami adekbuzan i’m a

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multi-disciplinary artist from toronto

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uh canada i work primarily in the field

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of afrofuturism and afro-afro-surrealism

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my process is pretty eclectic like i

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have a background as a commercial

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photographer so a lot of stuff is photo

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based i also work with digital

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illustration collage assemblage and i

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like to source a lot of my images from

What is your work about

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either photos that i’ve taken myself or

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comic books or um

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historic photos stuff like that the

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importance of afrofuturism to me is uh

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the reason that my my work

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centers around it so heavily is that i

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just feel like it’s important to have

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the opportunity to create new narratives

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and to focus on

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creating from imagination rather than

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the

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having the need to tie everything to to

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direct historical

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facts or or things like that like a lot

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of my work is is informed

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by historical events but i also i don’t

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want to be

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uh forced to be hyper literal about

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everything and explaining everything um

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from through that lens and from that

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perspective i think

What do you think about afrofuturism

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i think there’s a lot of value to that

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but i also think it’s it’s there’s a lot

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of artists that already do that i think

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uh the interesting thing about genres

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like afrofuturism and afro-surrealism is

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that they offer an opportunity to to

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sort of create with more of a blank

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slate i know for myself it’s been very

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freeing and i think a lot of other

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artists that work in that field feel

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feel that way as well because so much of

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black art ends up being trauma-based for

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very obvious reasons but yeah it’s also

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it’s also nice to be able to create in

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in a space that’s not you know centered

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around that

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i think pride and empowerment are words

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that i use a lot my hope is to spark a

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little bit of curiosity there’s like

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there’s so much symbolism in the work

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there’s there’s a lot of things embedded

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in these pieces that i think people from

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black communities can

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look at and and see a little piece of

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themself but you know they’re all

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there’s also a lot of stuff that may not

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be familiar and if if that sparks a

What is your passion

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little bit of curiosity and interest to

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pursue it or to find something new

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that’s great too i’m really passionate

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about the idea of sort of remixing and

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and

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repurposing materials i mean it all like

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from my perspective it all sort of boils

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down to sort of collage or assemblage

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practice for and and i think you you see

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that in

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indigenous cultures from across the

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world i think how it takes shapes in

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afro-caribbean uh diaspora

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is like you see it in a lot of

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mask-making traditions from carnaval to

diaspora and remix culture

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you know a lot of the traditions uh in

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you know west west and central africa um

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masquerade traditions there is a lot of

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repurposed materials sort of eclectic

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materials finding their way to

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you know into uh into a piece and the

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other thing that i sort of dawned on me

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as i started creating this work was that

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remix culture is also like it’s it’s

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sort of like the foundation of hip-hop

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as well and when i started to sort of

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draw the correlation between that the

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indigenous practices to to creating art

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and then the the connections to the the

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foundations of hip-hop because a lot of

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uh you know early hip-hop equipment was

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made in a very similar way it’s like

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people breaking down uh

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speakers or radio equipment or bringing

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and sort of like building it back up to

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create their own sound systems hacking

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uh into the electricity on a from a

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public light post or something like that

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to you know to to power it it’s the same

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sort of ideology it’s the same sort of

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approach so all that to say i feel like

the importance of remix culture

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remix culture is like embedded

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or it just goes hand in hand with sort

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of like black creativity and whether

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you’re talking about masquerade culture

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or hip-hop culture all the way up to the

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present i think it’s like a very

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fundamental part of of the creative

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process um i think that’s why i’m so

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drawn to it as a medium so whether

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whether i’m working digitally it’s still

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a collage or if i’m working with

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repasting analog

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techniques i’m still sort of collaging

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pulling in different materials sort of

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creating a final piece out of that

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but also like the the music itself for

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sure like the the sampling the the idea

the umbrella of blackness

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of like finding an old record and

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chopping that tiny little piece out of

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it and turning it into something new but

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it’s still

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it’s still a way of like building on

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history and moving things forward so

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some of the the ideas that i’m playing

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with are exploring the space between

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specific cultural and ethnic identities

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and then the overall

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umbrella of blackness i guess you know

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everybody has their own ethnicity and

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cultural background and you know i think

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for a lot of black people you know in

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canada for instance you know there’s a

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lot there’s a heavy caribbean population

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there’s a lot of people from

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east and and west africa so there’s

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there’s a lot of really rich specific

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cultural traditions but then there’s

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also this other

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thing um it’s sort of like a societal

black as a monolith

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media

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generation this idea of blackness as

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blackness as a monolith and so many

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things get called black and labeled

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black

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um as if it’s just

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one thing and it’s it’s sort of it’s

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it’s kind of crazy in a sense because

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it’s almost like a non-descriptor like

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it’s you’re not

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when you call something black you’re not

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really you’re not necessarily

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um

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explaining

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anything specific because there’s so

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much diversity within blackness um so

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that’s kind of

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that’s kind of

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one of the main themes that i explore

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with the work as well is just

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like all these pieces are are black and

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white um to to represent that idea of

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blackness as a monolith but at the same

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time

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the eclectus the eclectic-ness of the

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symbolism all the you know everything

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that’s collaged into these pieces

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represents like all of the all the

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diversity and all these different

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elements that you know that are

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included under under that umbrella so

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