Date of Award

10-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Art in Art History and Visual Culture

Department

Art

First Advisor

James Hutson

Second Advisor

Nadia Pawelchak McDonald

Third Advisor

Piper Hutson

Abstract

This research demonstrates how Afrofuturistic art, combined with nature and scent, enables powerful methods to transform African Diaspora perceptions and support holistic wellness through sensory-emotional engagement. The project introduces The Next Narrative: An Immersive Journey Through Black Time as a multisensory immersive exhibition that combines Afrofuturistic aesthetics with Harlem Renaissance cultural elements. The exhibition presents salons as a sequence that allows visitors to experience time through visual, sonic, and atmospheric transitions. The three senses of touch, scent, and sound operate as fundamental tools for grounding and transformation, which disable analytical thinking while using bodily experiences to perform decolonial memory work. Nature is a metaphor representing Black time because it operates seasonally while connecting everything and regenerating itself. Olfactory experience serves as a method to activate the body's existing knowledge through sensory memory. Through its installation design, this project establishes a living archive that challenges traditional linear historical frameworks of colonialism. It presents an alternative approach to immersive Black storytelling, focusing on embodied reception and cultural healing.

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