A disco ball hanging from the ceiling cast a dark orb on a white wall inside Silver Hills Studio hidden off the King Street Extension.
Shadows threw shapes on the blank walls as people meandered through a brightly lit display of artworks at the 5000 Black Parable of the Sower Exhibit on Jan. 19.
A slew of Black artists were on display at the 5000 Black Afro-Futurist Art Exhibition held Jan. 19 at Silver Hills Studio.
The evening was part of the 5000 Black Afro-Futurist Art Exhibition Series. It consists of three weekends of community arts events centered around themes of Afro-optimism in dystopian times and the solar-punk aesthetic, which imagines a future where people and nature exist harmoniously.
5000 Black has one more weekend of events taking place Feb. 1 and 2 in downtown Charleston, including a day of free family-friendly activities at The Ripple Fund center, an artist talk at Buxton Books and a finale concert at Music Farm with OJ Da Juiceman. Visit eventnoire.com for details.
A slew of Black artists were on display at the 5000 Black Afro-Futurist Art Exhibition held Jan. 19 at Silver Hills Studio.
The co-curators of the 5000 Black series are Charleston natives Zania Cummings, a poet and actress, and Marcus McDonald, lead organizer of the Charleston chapter of Black Lives Matter. Their first two exhibits, 3000 Black and 4000 Black, took place in the winter and spring of 2023 at Commonhouse Aleworks.
The Fela Kuti song “2000 Blacks Got to Be Free” featuring Roy Ayers was an inspiration for the moniker, McDonald said.
Works on display at 5000 Black spanned representational depictions, abstract conceptualizations and 3D woodwork.
From 3 p.m. until about 8 p.m. on Jan. 19, more than 75 attendees viewed a collection of works by 15 Black visual artists. Among the artist lineup was Demetrius Bing, a Charleston native whose artistic style moves from abstraction to representational, saturating elements of pop and street art with his own inventive angst.
“5000 Black is putting artists in places where they feel safe,” Bing said, whose work was featured on the official poster for the 2024 MOJA Arts Festival that took place in September.
“A lot of artists don’t feel safe in the arts because they don’t feel like a value,” he said, “and bringing us all together like this lets us see that many people support us.”
Octavia Butler’s 1993 speculative fiction novel “Parable of the Sower” was a foundational reference for the exhibition. The 5000 Black curatorial statement stated the exhibition intended to “further emphasize the importance of optimism, agriculture and creating a community of change in the face of state sanctioned repression.”
“Afro-futurism is the concept of envisioning what the diaspora looks like in the future,” Cummings told The Post and Courier.
5000 Black co-curators Marcus McDonald (left) and Zania Cummings are pictured at Silver Hills Studio on Jan. 19.
It’s newness, rebirth, hopefulness and happiness, she said. Afro-futurism is about planting the tree even if you won’t be around to bask in its shade.
“That concept, to me, speaks to the resilience of Black folks in general,” she said. “In 3,000 years we could still have our afro pick. Maybe it’s made out of titanium. The seeds of our culture don’t have a choice but to bleed through because they live in us. Tradition exists within your being.”
Works on display at 5000 Black spanned representational depictions, abstract conceptualizations and 3D woodwork.
Several vendors were in attendance slinging vinyl records, books, jewelry, art prints and clothing. The event included a screening of Charleston filmmaker Tyquan Morton’s “Eulogy to the Dawn Chorus.” With soundscaping by Charleston musician Slim S.O.U.L., a pop-up performance by rapper Indi’Gxld and spoken word from Cummings, the evening was a holistic sensory experience.
Cummings recited one of her poems entitled “Carbs,” comparing her first date with someone to a bagel.
“You are bread, and I shouldn’t be eating carbs this late at night,” she recited.
The 5000 Black Afro-Futurist Art Exhibition saw more than 75 attendees.
In addition to the Jan. 19 exhibit, the 5000 Black series continued with The Black Stargazer event, which took place from 6-9 p.m. Jan. 25 at Fort Moultrie and featured telescopes from Lowcountry Stargazers with support from NASA.
Inside the Fort Moultrie auditorium, attendees heard talks from Charleston poet laureate AsiahMae and South Carolina writer Latria Graham. They watched a screening of a portion of the 2023 film “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovani Project.”
For McDonald, 5000 Black is a way to unite art and activism, which is what Afro-futurism is in his perspective.
“We’re dreaming and trying to work toward a reality that doesn’t exist right now,” he said. “There’s a need for Black spaces in Charleston, and we are helping to raise awareness of that.”
Proceeds from the 5000 Black exhibition and finale concert benefit Fresh Future Farm, a local Black-owned urban farm advocating for food justice and serving marginalized communities throughout the Charleston tri-county area.