The University of Rhode Island hosted Nancey B. Price, an Afrofuturist collage artist who uses her art to draw connections between her identity, her past and the future on Thursday, Oct. 9.
Afrofuturism is defined as “expressions of Black identity, agency and freedom through art, creative works and activism that envision liberated futures for Black life” by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Notable Afrofuturist figures include author Octavia Butler, musician Janelle Monae and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, as listed on the museum’s website.
Price is a storyteller and collage artist from rural Georgia. She began the talk with a story about a hurricane that happened shortly after she moved out of her parents house after college. She drove home to Girard, Georgia – a large agricultural town with a nuclear plant nearby. Price’s family has lived in Girard for generations.
While at her childhood home, in her bedroom, she began collaging. Price drew connections between the images she was using in the collage and her personal history. Her first collage was Blooming Grief, a black-and-white photo of a Black woman with a single tear running down her face with bright pink flowers at the bottom of the image.
Price has since created over 50 pieces and exhibited them across Georgia. She has been featured in a number of publications, including Motif Magazine and the Oprah Magazine, and holds creative workshops at libraries and universities.
Price’s work is Afrofuturist, but that was not something she set out to make.
“At the time I kind of understood what Afrofuturism meant; these were kind of the visuals I had in my mind,” Price said, as she showed images of African men and women in galactic outfits and settings. “There’s colors, there’s Black people, something about the future and Black people in it.”
Though others told her that her work was Afrofuturist, Price felt like there was something missing.
“It’s this,” Price said, showing a picture of a cornfield. “I don’t see my daddy’s cornfield in Afrofuturism; I don’t see rurality.”
Price felt as though Afrofuturism was missing the South. It didn’t include the culture, agriculture or stories of Southern Black Americans.
To draw that connection, she imagined her art as farming. Price was taking seeds from the past, images from magazines or old family photos and putting them into new contexts, where their outputs benefit others.
She also looked to other forms of media to find a similar connection. “Sinners,” the 2025 film, and “Cowboy Carter,” the Beyoncé album, were two examples that Price used of Black Southern creativity through an Afrofuturist lens. She pointed out a specific scene in “Sinners” where the past, present and future blend together in a mystical and surrealist way, according to her.
Price also highlighted “Alligator Tears” off “Cowboy Carter” and showed a video of a live performance.
In both of these pieces of media, the music used samples or interpolated an older song. In “Sinners,” the scene Price played shows the connection between traditional African drumming and blues. “Alligator Tears” samples Black folk artist Lead Belly, born sometime around 1890.
Price was invited to the university by James B. Haile, a professor of philosophy, who was drawn to the magical realism aspect of Price’s work. The talk was hosted in the Hope Room of the Welcome Center and sponsored by the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, the Affirming Multivocal Humanities Mellon Grant and the Jane Cotton Ebbs Endowed Professorship in Philosophy.
