Meet the Artist: Ini Archibong

Meet Ini Archibong, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in "Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room."

“I think for a lot of us, when we were kids, our ability to envision a future that was different than some of the things that we didn’t like that we were seeing around us was to escape into a fantasy and envision a future that’s more akin to a superhero comic book than it is to actual reality—and I think that comes through in my work and a lot of the people that express visions in an Afrofuture.” – Ini Archibong

Meet Ini Archibong, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.” Born in California to Nigerian parents and trained in Europe, Archibong incorporates luxurious and technologically daring materials in his designs with influences from folklore, mysticism, astronomy, and music to create a distinctly futuristic aesthetic.


Fan showing a dramatic scene of a volcanic eruption and lava flow.
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Ashley E. Dunn and Jane R. Becker
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Two covers of Jamel Shabazz books
Resources for exploring Black style and dandyism in The Costume Institute Library.
Julie Lê and Kai Toussaint Marcel
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Two men stand together in a black-and-white photo. The man in front wears sunglasses, a patterned coat, and a beret. The man behind wears glasses and a jacket, exuding a serious, contemplative mood. Dark buildings silhouette the background.
My search for meaning in Black style began as a search through ancestry to reveal beauty and complexity over time and across traditions of expression.
Grace Wales Bonner
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