Lunchtime Talk: Infusing Afrofuturism & Landing the Last Blues Song
Please note: This event took place in May 2020
We're delighted to be joined by writer, historian, curator, performer and Studio resident Dr Edson Burton for this week’s Lunchtime Talk.
Edson will be discussing his project The Last Blues Song of a Lost Afronaut, which was first imagined in 2013 and made into a reality when he became Watershed’s Artist in Residence in 2016. The Last Blues Song of a Lost Afronaut is an immersive theatre piece in which the discovery of an archaic device on a lifeless planet leads to an Afronaut explorer questioning the origins of his/her civilisation – exploring decolonised identities, mythologies, cultural syncretism, ghosts exodus and environmental collapse.
During this lunchtime talk, Edson will be sharing his progress with the project, the challenges he has faced on realising the scale of the idea and the amount of funding he would need to raise to fully realise his vision. He'll also touch on Afrofuturism and how since working on The Last Blues Song of a Lost Afronaut, Afrofuturism has continued to inform many of his major projects.