Solo(s): Krista Franklin: Overview

The DePaul Museum of Art and DePaul University Library have partnered to create research guides to accompany DPAM exhibitions.  This guide serves as a starting point for conducting research about the artists, works of art, and context of items in the exhibition.

Krista Franklin, Made in Chicago​, 2021. Watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, pencil, and collage.

Influenced by D. Scot Miller's “AfroSurreal Manifesto: Black is the new Black", Krista Franklin's Solo(s) exhibition key themes include Afrosurrealism, Afrofuturism, Negritude, Black Feminism, Liberation Theology, Sexuality, Gender Identity and Intersectionality. Solo(s) is a journey into utopian, dystopian, metaphysical, spiritual, and metaphorical realms of existence and experience from an African and Black Diaspora lens.

Miller on Afro-Futurism:

Afro-Futurism is a diaspora intellectual and artistic movement that turns to science, technology, and science fiction to speculate on black possibilities in the future. Afro-Surrealism is about the present. There is no need for tomorrow’s-tongue speculation about the future.

Miller on Afro-Surrealism:

An Afro-Surreal aesthetic addresses these lost legacies and reclaims the souls of our cities...

Afro-Surreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it.

(Miller, D. Scot. "Afrosurreal Manifesto: Black Is the New Black—A 21st Century Manifesto." Black Camera 13, no. 1 (2021): 515-519.)