On view September 23 – December 14 at Montclair State University Galleries: The Age of Black Metal is an exhibition expanding the book into an immersive, time bending, and cosmic journey through Black potential. 🚀
The Black Metal Olympics, hosted by @parsonsschoolofdesign , was an expansive time.
We began with a screening of the Black Metal film, followed by a thoughtful post-screening reflection on Black Metal as a motif, its world-building’s pluralistic engagement of multi-diasporic knowledge systems, and the process of collaboration.
And in less than an hour, students embraced the challenge of extending the world of Black Metal with their own imagination. New senses were created, the spacesuit was expanded, and prizes were given 🌟
Closing out Black Futures Month and the Winter Olympics season with a final lift off 🚀
The very last Black Metal Starship Program event is the Black Metal Olympics at @parsonsschoolofdesign this Wednesday from 12:30-2:30PM 🌟
Poster by @brightpolkadot
And thank you @jendianq , @ayo.io , and Luciana for the support
🌟The Age of Black Metal exhibition closes this weekend @montclair_galleries 🌟
Today is the last day for the public to drop in (12- 4pm). Visits this weekend are by appointment 🚀
It was powerful to watch @montclair_galleries ‘s student educators present and share the world of Black Metal with such care and rigor 🌟 and to see them pass that knowledge on to high school students who may soon follow in their footsteps.
These high schoolers were deep in thought. Generous and confident as they shared how Black Metal resonates with them today, and how it might continue to help shape their futures. ✨
Last two slides are high school student Aaliyah’s notes reflecting on the Black Metal tour 🚀
There are two more weeks left to visit The Age of Black Metal exhibition at @montclair_galleries 🚀 | Sept 23 - December 14th, 2025
The gallery is open Tuesdays - Fridays 12-4pm, and by appointment 🌟
📷 @nourie3
A shared belief in pedagogy that begins as play — a rigorous yet porous method for imagination and inquiry. ✨
It was exciting for the Age of Black Metal exhibition to be joined by New Jersey educators practicing the pedagogical methods of Reggio Emilia. We found so much overlap in how we each approach learning, growth, and creativity. Reggio Emilia centers the design of environments, forms of participation, and professional growth through organic, student-centered approaches. Values that deeply resonate with Afrotectopia.
The creation of Black Metal, and much of Afrotectopia’s ethos overall, has been about designing the “container” for imagination to thrive without a preset destination. Black Metal emerged from four aligned artists mind-melding and simply asking, “What’s possible?”
Such an inspiring visit. 🌟
Black Metal considers consciousness to be the most profound technology.
In an age of AI and the increased desire to acquire knowledge from external sources with Western world priorities, Black Metal turns us inward to remind us of the vast reservoir of insight, cultivated intuition, and inherited ancestral wisdom we each carry. Black Metal renders a future that transcends racial hegemony, recognizing an inherent self worth according to an expansive Black cultural value system.
Ultimately, it is our consciousness that determines how any technology is shaped and used, and how our realities are experienced.
Black Metal commissioned co-authorship by @jordan__silver , @jatafa , and @jeremykamal , with @ariciano in 2021. Each crafting an inner software that offers alternative ways of understanding their inner and outer worlds. Through utilizing ancestrally African practices, contemporary Black culture, and an international collection of diasporic creativity to imagine new futures — these explorations became an offering for others that it might aid, too.
This work stands in the lineage of Sun Ra, who treated consciousness as a vessel for space travel; Octavia Butler, who understood belief systems and empathy as technologies for survival; and the ancestral African cosmologies that regarded dreams, trance, and imagination as instruments of knowing.
The Age of Black Metal exhibition invites you to explore what these tools might reveal for you.
This concludes the curator’s tour.
Beautifully captured by @nourie3 , thank you.
The Age of Black Metal is on view at @montclair_galleries through December 14 🚀
The final stop in The Age of Black Metal exhibition is The Signal Room as a space for reflection, ambient engagement, and self-guided programming. Visitors are invited to listen to vinyl records and explore books curated by #AmarieCemoneGipson, founder of @thereadingroom.htx
In addition to founding The Reading Room, Amarie is a writer, curator, DJ, and dedicated archivist who has built a reference library of more than 700 books devoted to Black art, culture, politics, and history. Her selection of vinyl and books for this space responds to each chapter of the exhibition and extends Black Metal into the larger canon of Black and Pan-African imagination.
Featured books and records include:
* Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists Since 1940
* Secret Life of Plants by Stevie Wonder
* ATLiens by Outkast
* A Strange Celestial Road: My Time in the Sun Ra Arkestra by Ahmed Abdullah
* They Say I’m Different by Betty Davis
The Age of Black Metal is on view at @montclair_galleries through December 14 🚀
🎥 @nourie3
The Black Metal pilgrimage culminates with Training Grounds, by #JordanCaldwell. Their early inspirations for this chapter included seminal works like Kodwo Eshun’s “More Brilliant Than the Sun,” Octavia Butler’s “Dawn,” and N.K. Jemisin’s “The Evaluators.”
Taking the form of a metaphysical workbook while in the original book, this installation extends the chapter into an environment that invites you to pause and reflect on what you could practice to help unleash a more aligned self.
While the end of books is usually a conclusion, this “ending” is meant as an invitation to return to the experience again and again, finding something new each time.
The Age of Black Metal is on view at @montclair_galleries through December 14 🚀
🎥 @nourie3
Black Metal can be found in the collections of several university and museum libraries nationwide, among them the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and LACMA’s Balch Art Research Library and Archives.
