AFRO
absurdism
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THE ABSURD
The word "absurd", ordinarily, defines a bizarre event, strange character or a confusing state of affairs. But often times, we see that from the banal; the ordinary, springs forth "the idea".
Ideologically, the "Absurd" encompasses the collective myriad experiences of all things alive, in relationship the detached indifference of the universe they exist within. The cosmos is indifferent to life in all forms and life cannot comprehend the cosmos. Thus arose the question: "what is the meaning of life?". Why are we all here; humans, birds, prey and predator? Why do we create art of any form? What is the purpose of any thing all living things do?. If you listen hard enough for answers to these questions you will hear a resounding silence from the universe.
This existential contradiction of both paradigms existing simultaneously gives rise to the Absurd. This is where human beings come in. A subjective evolution of sentient awareness of self and surrounding ensured that no animal, except the homo sapiens, recognizes the Absurd. Consequently, Absurdism, as ideology, embodies a subjective, humanist and objective, universalist conflict.
At its core, the philosophy of Absurdism conceptualizes the eternal conflict between the tendency of human beings to search for an inherent meaning and/or purpose in life and the human inability to find a rational meaning in an indifferent and irrational universe.
AFRO-ABSURDISM
Afro-Absurdism is an artistic and culturally dynamic movement which seeks to incorporate men and women of African descent into the recognition of their collective, historical and present experience as a people, and their need to find a meaning and justification of their social, and biological uniqueness, while existing simultaneously with the benign indifference of the universe.
Absurdism, viewed through the lens of the "Afro" experience, evolves into a unique position. In embracing the Absurd, and realizing his world is devoid of objective absolutes, free to be, and to create personal purpose, the African soon recognizes the social, racial, religious and political constraints on his mind, preventing him from becoming the single, most precious unit of his existence.
Yet it is not enough to stop there. Afro-absurdism calls for the African to reject extreme consumerist and supernatural notions of artistic expression, and embrace existential freedom. The Afroabsurdist basks in the spectrum between extremes, and while connected to a community, or family, finds the freedom to put individual expression above surrendering identity to outdated social institutions, social decadence and societal corruption.
It calls for recognition and raising of the African consciousness. Recognition is the only defensible position. Conclusively, the alternative Afro-absurdism provides as a movement is; existing as an ideological movement via which the manifestation of African art; literature, film, music, photography, visual arts and poetry can be expressed free from exploitation and trauma mongering.
In its origins and ethos, Afro-absurdism is a global and diasporic movement open to people of African descent, and our allies, who are united in expressing their individuality, and determined to evolve relevant forms of the African heritage in art, science and technology into long-lasting statements of creative expression in the present and in the future.
Revolution. Freedom. Passion.
Tony Mallick.
WHAT IS AFROABSURDISM?
Afroabsurdism is an international avant-garde school of art and thought forged by social revolutionaries, political theorists, and artists in defiant pursuit of irrational freedom. It is a multi-disciplinary movement and a manifesto-driven culture. Afroabsurdism draws on the Afro-Surrealist and Afro-Futurist canon, remixing influences from James Joyce to Sun Ra, Duchamp to Margiela. It rejects Western logic, embraces ambiguity, rebels against Eurocentric rationalism, and affirms an irrational, poetic, self-invented Black experience empowered by hybridity, lunacy, "God-killing," and symbolic immortality.
Manifesto Excerpt:
"We reject your reality and substitute our own. Logic is a cage; absurdity is our liberation. We wear masks of madness to reveal deeper truths. We kill the false god of imposed reason and resurrect infinite gods within ourselves. In the theater of Afroabsurdism, impossibility is the point."
A MANIFESTO OF AFRO-ABSURD
Behold the wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate! You shall see unknown wonders!
- We recognize the confrontation between the Afro-Absurdists need and the unreasonable silence of the world.
- We must liberate ourselves from the inertia resulting from centuries of Eurocentric Dominance and Normalization, and the cold brick cynical insincerity of America's antonymous bastard children.
- We shall not despair in the face of misery or atrocity, we shall not theorize it's ridiculousness.
- We propose a pragmatic compromise between two similar notions; Afro-futurism and Afro-Surrealism, speaking to the tourist and purist within both simultaneously.
- Afro-Absurdists acknowledge the Buddhistized between the black experience and its meaning. Afro-Absurdists are aware—of their own dissonance as if observing from afar.
- Afro-Absurdists are caught within the empirical and aphoristic self-awareness of paradoxical ambition and identity. We embrace the ambiguous, the fluid, the dandy, the post-racial, the ironic, the sincere, naive, knowingness, relativism, and truth.
- Afro-Absurdists respond to political propaganda with nonsense, cultivating lunacy and hysteria when audience tries to find faith in reason while addressing the disillusionment of our generation in relation to all current and future events. Afro-Absurdists revel in the ephemeral and illusory inherent in race while understanding the impersonal cosmos renders race meaningless and insignificant.
- Afro-Absurdists are intersexed with the Afro-Futurists, Afro-Surrealists, Afro-Asiatic, Afro-Cuban, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, the birth of the civil rights movement, the Black Dadaists, the LGBTQ community, anti-war, feminist, environmental, free speech, while weaponizing subversion and hybridization as a form of disobedience, and relishing in the absurd as visitations from God.
- Afro-Absurdists are agnostic and reject the quiet servitude of collapsed icons, borderline misotheistic. We believe in the democratization of entropic dissemblance. Afro-Absurdists are God Killers.
- Afro-Absurdists reimagine existing structures, we turn within for direction, we are our own OG's.
You're against us, if you're not against who we're against.
If you're with them, you're against us.
If you follow them, you're against us.
If we're too weird for you, you're against us.
THE AFROABSURDIST ALPHABET
This is the Afroabsurdist Alphabet, a sacred-secular glyph system created to collapse colonial language and awaken a new tongue. Each letter is more than phoneme—it is a symbol, a portal, a concept, a contradiction. Inspired by Nsibidi, Adinkra, Arabic calligraphy, graffiti, and asemic writing, these 27 glyphs form the chaotic heart of the Afroabsurdist Lexicon. This alphabet is not linear. Letters change shape in ritual. Glyphs are spoken through breath, click, hum, moan. It is a script of rebellion, to be read sideways, dreamt upside-down, sung backwards.
THEOLOGY: Deconstructing Space, Reconstructing Identity
Pantheon of Hybridity:
Afroabsurdism's theology is a deliberate collage of spiritual traditions – a new syncretic faith that is at once devotional and defiant. It draws upon West African spirituality (Orisha and Vodou loa), Sufi Islam, the Nation of Gods and Earths (Five Percenters), Rastafari's Tribe of Judah, and an Afro-surrealist misotheism (creative rage against oppressive gods). In practice, this means Afroabsurdists worship everything and nothing. They invoke Yoruba deities like Elegua (the trickster at the crossroads) alongside reciting Quranic verses in the same breath. A prayer might open with a Muslim "Bismillah", pivot to praising Ogún (Yoruba god of iron) and end with the Five Percenter affirmation "I Self Lord and Master." This jumble is intentional – it creates spiritual dissonance as a form of rebellion against religious dogma.
God-Killing and Self-Deification:
A core tenet is "God is not external – God is us." This echoes the Five Percent Nation belief that the Black man is Allah (God) and the Black woman is Earth. Afroabsurdists take this further: they symbolically kill the false God – the distant, judgmental deity imposed by colonial religions – in order to awaken the divine within the self. This is their "divine regicide": slaying the oppressive god-image to crown every believer as a living god. It's a theology of personal divinity and radical responsibility. In Afroabsurdist myth, the moment God dies (by our hand), the universe shatters into countless shards – and each human picks up a shard and wears it as a crown. In destroying the singular God, we become plural gods.
Theological Creed (sample):
"I believe in the chaos, the crossroads, and the crown within.
I am the prayer and the answer to it.
No gods above me, no gods below –
I walk with ancestors and unborn souls in my shadow."
FASHION LEXICON & BRAND IDENTITY: Vestments of Rebellion
Anti-Fashion Aesthetic:
In Afroabsurdism's wardrobe, fashion is art and armor. The style is fiercely avant-garde, drawing inspiration from legends like Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander McQueen, Demna Gvasalia, and Margiela. This means silhouettes are exaggerated or abstracted beyond recognition: jackets with four sleeves, gowns that wrap the body in chaotic swathes of fabric, and suits tailored with deliberate asymmetry (one half Victorian dandy, the other half space-age streetwear). Nothing is "normal" – the Afroabsurd look is as if a traditional African masquerade costume collided with a couture runway.
Lexicon of Style:
Afroabsurdist designers have coined new terms to describe their clothing, since existing fashion vocabulary falls short. Some key terms in the Afroabsurd Fashion Lexicon:
WEARFARE:
Garments that double as protest. For example, a trench coat whose lining is printed with the names of police brutality victims – literally wearing the truth on the inside.
BRAND IDENTITY & COMPANY MANIFESTO: The Rebel Creed of Afroabsurdism
Manifesto Tone and Style:
The company manifesto is written in bold, declarative statements with a prophetic tone, reminiscent of Kanye's theatrical pronouncements and Virgil's design philosophies. It often uses quotation marks and irony. For instance, one line might read: We are a "brand" that unbrands. (Implying they operate in the commercial space while rejecting its values, very much in quotes). The manifesto might be broken into numbered axioms for emphasis:
- "Logic" is poison – we prefer paradox.
- We are God and Devil to ourselves.
- Fashion is a weapon, Art is a prayer, Business is a trojan horse.
- No product, just prophecy.
- Destroy to create.
Our Manifesto:
- "If it makes sense, we probably didn't make it."