A good interviewer helps you see your own practice in a new light and that’s precisely what @ravighosh_ managed to do w/ this profile for @wetransfer 🥹 we talked about my feelings on Afrofuturism, how @afropresentism seeks to respond to that genre, the #digitaldiaspora project that began my African cyberculture investigations, my move to LA, the @datahealing workbook & more ! Swipe til the end for my favorite excerpts 💛 and thank you to @studioolafureliasson for having selected me as one of the artists in his curation for @wepresent ⚜️ • #afropresentism

#Afropresentism #Afropresentismo

Dozens of streets named “Kenya” all over Brazil … & “Soweto,” “Lesotho,” “Uganda,” “Botswana,” “Sudan,” “Fiji,” “Eritrea,” [the list goes on]. Will be hashtag mapping & hyperlinking our way thru archives all month long to get to the bottom of how/when this many streets in ‘random’ neighborhoods all over Brazil took up the names of cities & countries which even Afro-Brazilians (allegedly) don’t have strong explicit ties to. 🌍🌎🌏 The birth of a #cybercartography ⛲️

Field #cybercartography from my first ever Q&A with Google’s AI a few days ago (on a Gmail acct not linked to my name) ~ anonymously asking single-word to single-sentence prompts about my own work + the theoretical kinship (or lack thereof) between @afropresentism & @datahealing . Google/Gemini citing @beyonce & @erykahbadu as key Afropresentists is not something I was expecting but I think the last 3 slides are the ones that had me the most mindblown. I can count on my two hands the number of print texts I’ve published on Afropresentism/Data*Healing (having chosen instead to invest in the two as oral literatures) but have a mountain of drafts & unpublished work sitting in my GDocs, alongside many ‘breadcrumb trails’ across my various project-specific IG accounts & archived posts. I must admit those two databanks seem to have been well-synthesised in these answers …. (in some cases, verbatim)🫢

We came to Brazil to incubate the @studionkisi Relational Architecture & Fellowship Techne (RAFT) program and what a blessing to get to do so alongside @institutoarquitetosdafavela (the Institute of Favela Architects). Beyond honored to learn alongside you • Snapshots from our first site visit together today 🏗️ “A missão do Studio Nkisi é reindigenizar a tecnologia por meio de arquiteturas reparadoras. Liderado por Neema Githere Sïphone em uma cocriação com (e dentro da) #diásporadigital, o Studio Nkisi se especializa em colaborações de longa duração que desafiam o mito da autoria exclusiva. O Studio Nkisi é um escritório de arquitetura relacional que produz programas discursivos, cibercartografias, abrigos instalativos de grande escala, peregrinações de pesquisa e intervenções curatoriais concebidas no espírito do Afropresentismo.” 📸: @take.back.theinternet

THE KISII-KUNDIAWA BRIDGE • Afropresentist Technologies for Finding Your Way Home [7 Sept <> 7 Dec 2025] ~ Directed•By Neema Sïphone 📍🇵🇬(@datahealing – [email protected]) in ever-unfolding call&response* with kin+comrades ...& heeding the call to attend to our response•abilities at large]* • An Afropresentist technofossil experimenting with testimony as (silence+ craft)*, coming•together as pt.1 of a recursive*, durationally•(re)developing* film. • Droned [by @blackbillygoat ], styled [@maahleek + Lynda + Neema], produced [Mommy Boss + Neema] & creative directed [Everyone Present + the sum of our ancestors] improvisationally* on location, in the highlands of Papua New Guinea as part of the inaugural Nkisi Research•Netting Group for #transmediale2026. This technofossil was edited by (@datahealing ) in one 7-hour long sitting* in Nairobi, Kenya; informed by the experiences and engagements from within & beyond the third Nkisi Netting Group [Wairimũ Nduba @astoldbytsige @shomadjozi @rharha_nembhard @puntojpgs @digitalafrican @g.a.m.s.a @k.hailesilassie Catherine Lie @blackbillygoat + @bamichic_ ] in Lamu Island and Watamu, Kenya. [[“Siphone”, in Sheng - the creolized dialect of Kiswahili that is endemic to Nairobi - translates to “[I’m] not a Phone}}* The fossil/shell•terminal [4 minerals to be well-sheltered, too] is dedicated to all of the people who have taught me about the art of praying-through-doing (namely the Baye Fall & @rharha_nembhard - who is the Head (+ Post-Gender Womb) Ritual Architect for transmediale 2026), and my prayer is that it may reach the many more for whom this art of prayerful•making could provide refuge - if and when (and as soon•as) it is most necessary. [* = indicates a clue towards shared/invited Afropresentist + Futura•Tropica tech•styles / #methods /#protocols / #praxis / #mythology] ~ 🌬️ • Initial credits below/at the @datahealing #LinkInBiome <> most robust citation can/will be found from 28 Jan - 1 February at transmediale 2026: by the mango belt & tamarind road in all of its (re•de)*distributed zones. Tickets are available on the transmediale website. See you there ~ x

When @pharrell calls, you answer & that’s precisely what @ebonybeachclub did this past weekend. PASS’s Creative Curriculum Director, Neema Githere (@datahealing ) was asked to contribute a short talk/historical contextualization on Black beach culture to the NEXT WAVE launch (and had the honor of being flown out from Nairobi to do so! #254totheWorld 🇰🇪). Infinite gratitude to @ahmedtea_ for this thoughtful video recap of the weekend we shared together. The Pan African Solidarity School is not about money or aesthetics, it’s about impact & supporting Black people *worldwide* in better understanding ourselves and one another. This weekend’s activation & convergence embodied the core of our mission at PASS ~ @pharrell launched the NEXT WAVE program to offer a year’s worth of *free* swim & surf lessons to the children in the housing projects in Virginia Beach that he himself grew up in. Showing up & giving back is an ethos that is at the heart not only of NEXT WAVE, but also @ebonybeachclub . It is nothing short of an honor to be working alongside EBC under the stewardship of @____brick , who is pioneering a Black surf renaissance imbued with an immensity of heart & joyfulness. As @pharrell said in his recap: this is only the beginning 🙏🏾

Today @kerearchitecture (a dear friend/mentor to whom I owe being able to be in Burkina Faso) introduced me to Thomas Sankara’s brother, Valentin Sankara, after a tour to the site where Sankara took his last breath & the place where he has been laid to rest (an in-progress mausoleum which @kerearchitecture has been commissioned to design). I’ve been going on pilgrimages across Africa for almost 10 years now but this one in Burkina Faso has without a doubt been the most transformative.

Yesterday’s event @CasadoBenin marked my first time ever doing a program in another language 🥹 I never formally studied Portuguese (shoutout Duolingo + my Brazilian beloveds for the crash courses) n só to have reached a point where I’m able to talk about theory in it feels meaningful in ways younger versions of me quite literally dreamt of. I stay making up my own words still and using gestures to finish sentences (lol) but @sateando made me realize that one day I’ll look back on this time with nostalgia for the imperfection :,) Thank you to everyone who came & shared in Presence yesterday, to @lumamora for your generosity + embodiment, @sateando for your documentation and @CasadoBenin for nurturing the spirit of Africa here in Bahia 🇧🇷🧡

Today marks the debut of Presentyzmo² —a joint initiative between Luma Nascimento (b. Salvador da Bahia, Brazil) and Neema Githere (b. Nairobi, Kenya), born out of a desire to build a bridge between the cowrie and the cloud. “In celebration of the 35th anniversary of CASA DO BENIN (@casadobenin ), the current director Igor Tiago invited Luma Nascimento (@presentyzmo ) and Neema Githere (@afropresentism ) to design an anniversary program. Casa do Benin was inaugurated in 1988–located in the heart of the Historic Center of Pelourinho, the House represents a piece of Africa in Bahia, where diasporic exchange is stewarded. The Cultural Space has a significant Afro-Brazilian artistic and cultural collection and is maintained by the Gregório de Mattos Foundation to enhance Afro-Brazilian cultural relations.” Today we start our series of programs with the __ARQUIVO installation: an invitation for to take a meta-archival journey with us in Presentyzmo² Dás 15h às 17h - CASA DO BENIN - Pelourinho - SALVADOR BAHIA | BR 📸: Experiments in AI as a method of incantation by @take.back.theinternet #afropresentism #presentyzmo #midjourney

It always takes me by (joyful) surprise to see ppl organizing around Afropresentism & to watch this concept grow its own wings 🦋 Found out about this conference taking place in Ontario next May bringing together researchers who are exploring Black art thru the lens of Presentism & I can’t wait to see what they put together ! • “Acknowledging that each Black author portrays their Blackness in their own, individual way, what can we learn from their specific representations of race and/or time? What about their Afropresentist work is timely, or transcends time?” #Afropresentism