Remixing Wakanda: Envisioning Critical Afrofuturist Design Pedagogies

Abstract

While maker education offers a method for increasing interest in STEM domains among youth, underrepresented communities possess a rich cultural history of making and STEM practices too often ignored by popular articulations of making. In this paper we describe the 8-week ReMixing Wakanda Project, which brings together youth of color, artists, designers, educators, and researchers to construct a new vision for a culturally relevant and sustaining STEAM-centered learning and making framework situated in an Afrofuturist design aesthetic. Here we highlight how the design of the physical space, discussions with guest artists, and a collective art construction supported participants as they explored the past to confront the present and imagine futures for and by and about themselves.