Public Seminar 3 – ARCHIVING SPECULATIVE

Monday, March 8th, 2021, 7pm
ARCHIVING SPECULATIVE ARTIFACTS FROM PROJECTED AFROFUTURES
Salome Asega and Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde of IYAPO REPOSITORY in conversation with Kodwo Eshun and the students.

HEAD – GenèveBoulevard Helvétique 9, 1205 Geneva, seminar room CCC, salle 27, 2nd floor

The talk is already available on our Youtube channel.

Image: Artifact025 AKA Khemo, 2016 ©


If Euro-American archaeology tends to interpret cultures of the past through ancient artifacts, then Afrodiasporic cultures of the future could be analysed by an institution dedicated to the study of artifacts from the projected pasts of African descended future cultures. Iyapo Repository, the project co-founded and co-directed by New York based artists and designers Ayo Okunseide and Salome Asega in 2016, operates as a speculative museum, a community resource centre and an archival institute devoted to the research, development, manufacture and modelling of prospective artifacts from Afrofutures past. Salome Asega and Ayo Okunseide of Iyapo Repository will join with Kodwo Eshun to think through the participatory ecology of speculative design fictions required for envisioning the projected modes of Afrological futurity enabled by proleptic artifacts created and archived within the Iyapo Repository.

Iyapo Repository (Salome Asega + Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde) is a resource library that houses a collection of digital and physical artifacts created to affirm and project the future of people of African descent. The collection is managed and developed through a series of workshops where participants become archivists of a future they envision. The resource library holds workshops in which participants sketch out and rapid-prototype future artifacts in domains such as food, music, politics, and fashion. These sketches constitute a collection of manuscripts. The Repository then works to bring a select few of these artifacts to life. They become technologically functional while staying true to the participants’ original blueprints. Alongside the art and artifacts collection, Iyapo Repository also hosts manuscripts, films, and rare books.