Afro-Futurist Visual Ecologies in France and Italy: A Journey Between Words, Sounds, and Images

Francesca Aiuti gave a talk on “Afro-Futurist Visual Ecologies in France and Italy: A Journey Between Words, Sounds, and Images” at the 2025 Conference of the African Literature Association in Nairobi, Kenya. She explored how Afrofuturist artists in France and Italy use digital and multimedia art—ranging from photomontage and sound design to online personas—to challenge dominant narratives of race and identity. In this context, Francesca examined how their work creates speculative ecologies and “retro-utopic” futures rooted in memory and embodied histories, positioning the digital sphere as a space for decolonial imagination and cultural regeneration.