ABOUT, M. Asli Dukan

M. Asli Dukan is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist who works primarily in the genres of speculative fiction as a subversive, radical and liberatory practice. She has screened at numerous film festivals in North America including the Newark International Film Festival, the Imagenation Film and Music Festival, the Langston Hughes Film Festival, the BlackStar Film Festival and at T.O. Webfest in Toronto, Canada. In 2017, her mixed-media, augmented-reality installation, the “Resistance Time Portal”, which centered Black radicalism in a futuristic narrative, made its debut in the Distance≠Time exhibition at the Icebox Project Space. In 2019, her experimental speculative fiction short, Memories from the Future, was a selection of Open Video Call for the spring/summer exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She has been the recipient of several grants, awards and fellowships, including a 2016 Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation, a 2016 NBPC 360 fellowship from Black Public Media, a 2018 Flaherty Seminar fellowship, a 2019 Sachs Program for Arts Innovation grant and a 2020 Independence Public Media Grant. In 2018, she completed Resistance: the battle of philadelphia, a near-future web series about a community’s struggle against surveillance and state violence. She is in post-production on Invisible Universe, a documentary about Black creators in speculative fiction. She is also in development on the anthology horror film, Skin Folk, based on the book by Nalo Hopkinson. She holds an MFA from the City University of New York and currently resides and teaches in Philadelphia.

Education

1999 | MFA | The City University of New York | New York, NY
1997 | BA | New Jersey City University | Jersey City, NJ

Grants, Awards, Fellowships

2020 | Independence Public Media Foundation | Community Voices Grant
2020 | United States Artist | Artist Relief Grant
2020 | Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity (WOO) Relief Fund Grant
2020 | The Village Emergency Gap Fund for Black Artists
2019 | Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity (WOO) Grant
2019 | The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation Grant
2018 | BlackStar Film Festival | Member Award
2018 | The Flaherty Seminar | Philadelphia Foundation Fellow
2018 | Scribe Video Center | Philadelphia Independent Media Finishing Fund
2017 | Sundance | New Frontier Day Lab Intensive
2016 | Leeway Foundation | Transformation Award
2016 | Black Public Media | NBPC 360 Fellow | Mentor: Arthur Jafa
2016 | Leeway Foundation | Art and Change Grant
2014 | The City University of New York Fellowship
2014 | Leeway Foundation | Art and Change Grant
2012 | Kitchen Table Giving Circle Grant
2009 | Urban Artist Initiative Grant

Filmography

2019 | Memories from the Future | HD | 6 min
2018 | Resistance: the battle of philadelphia | HD | 42 min web series
2017 | Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (prologue) | HD | 5 min
2011 | M.O.M.M. | HD | 13 min
2008 | 73 | HD | 13 min
2008 | Do You Mind | Artist: Hanifah Walidah | HD | 4:24 min
2006 | Boot | Artist: Tamar-kali | SD | 2:43 min
2001 | Skin Hunger | Artist: Skyn | SD | 3:36 min
2001 | Orishas | SD | 13 min
1999 | Sleeping on a train in Motion | 16mm | 30 min

Film Screenings

Memories from the Future:

2019 | True Turn Film Festival | On the Way to the Moon | Tulsa, OK
2019 | Institute of Contemporary Art | Open Video Call | Philadelphia, PA
2019 | Icebox Project Space | 20/92 Video Festival | Philadelphia, PA
2019 | VAE Raleigh | See(d) the Future | Raleigh, NC

Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (6 part web series):

2020 | The Women Filmmakers Festival | Washington DC
2019 | Idlewild Film Festival | Idlewild, MI
2019 | T.O. Webfest | Toronto, CAN
2018 | BlackStar Film Festival | Philadelphia, PA
2018 | OnyxCon Film Festival | Atlanta, GA
2018 | Newark International Film Festival | Newark, NJ
2018 | MECCAcon International Film Festival | Detroit, MI
2018 | Blerd City Con | St. Francis College | Brooklyn, NY

Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (prologue):

2018 | The Barnes Foundation | Philadelphia, PA
2017 | St. Francis College | Blerd City Con | Brooklyn, NY
2017 | Philadelphia Museum of Art | Philadelphia Assembled | Philadelphia, PA
2017 | Afropunk After Dark: Far Out Black | Brooklyn, NY
2017 | BlackStar Film Festival | Philadelphia, PA

M.O.M.M.:

2013 | Spelman College | Octavia E. Butler: Celebration of the Fantastic Arts | Atlanta, GA
2011 | Carver Museum & Cultural Center | MALI Women’s Film & Performance Art Conference | Austin, TX

73:

2011 | Carver Museum & Cultural Center | MALI Women’s Film & Performance Art Conference | Austin, TX
2008 | Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture | Imagenation Film & Music Festival | New York, NY

Visual Art Solo Exhibitions

2018 | Icebox Project Space | video commission | Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (episode 1) | Philadelphia, PA

Visual Art Group Exhibitions

2017 | Icebox Project Space | Distance≠Time (Time Camp 001) exhibition | Resistance Time Portal (mixed-media, AR installation) | Philadelphia, PA

Presentations

2020 | Video Art of M. Asli Dukan | Topics in the Modern Art: Automatism | Visiting Artist | Stony Brook University | Zoom
2018 | Queer + Black + Speculative Filmmaking in Philadelphia | Methodologies of Art History | Visiting Artist | Stony Brook University | Long Island, NY
2018 | Black SF Filmmakers 2018 | SPECULATIONS | Programmer, Moderator | Blerd City Con | Brooklyn, NY
2017 | Making Radical SF Films | BlackStar Filmmaker Symposium | Presentation | BlackStar Film Festival | Philadelphia, PA
2016 | Exploring the Invisible Universe | Afrofuturism and Social Justice Conference | Presentation | Connecticut College, New London, CT
2016 | Looking Back at Octavia E. Butler | Shaping Change Conference | Presentation | University of California at San Diego | San Diego, CA
2016 | What is the Invisible Universe? | Laser Life: Queer Sci-Fi | Presentation | Lava Space | Philadelphia, PA
2015 | African American Speculative Fiction Writers Infographic | Academy at Palumbo | Presentation | Philadelphia, PA
2015 | The Invisible Universe in Speculative Fiction Film | TransformDH (Transformative Digital Humanities) | Presentation | University of Maryland | College Park, MD
2015 | The White Fantastic Imagination and The Invisible Universe | The SF We Don’t See: Suppressed Histories, Liminal Voices, Emerging Media | The Science Fiction Research Association | Guest of Honor presentation | Stony Brook, NY
2015 | The White Fantastic Imagination and The Invisible Universe | Speculative Humanities: Steampunk to Afrofuturism Conference | Presentation | Essex County College | Newark, NJ
2013 | Brown Girl in the Ring/Voodoo and Zombies in Popular Media | The Shadows Took Shape | Presentation | The Studio Museum in Harlem | New York, NY
2011 | The Science Fiction Novels of Octavia E. Butler | M.A.L.I. Women’s Film & Performance Art Conference | Presentation | Carver Museum & Cultural Center | Austin, TX
2006 | Octavia E. Butler Tribute | Presentation | Vassar College | Poughkeepsie, NY
2006 | What is the Invisible Universe? | The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention | Presentation | The African American Museum | Philadelphia, PA

Panels

2018 | Film for All: Identity and the Pursuit of Freedom | The Barnes Foundation | Philadelphia, PA
2018 | Beyond Wakanda: The Resurgence of the Contemporary Black Reality & Future | BlackStar Film Festival | Philadelphia, PA
2017 | Future of Philadelphia Storytelling | New Frontier Day Lab and Intensive | Sundance Institute | Philadelphia, PA
2016, 2017 | qFlix Philadelphia film festival juror | Philadelphia, PA
2016-2019 | The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention juror | Philadelphia, PA
2015 | Filming the Future | Ferguson is the Future: Incubating Alternative Worlds through Arts, Activism and Scholarship | Princeton University | Princeton, NJ
2015 | ECBACC at the Movies | The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention | The Enterprise Center | Philadelphia, PA
2009 | Conversation w/ Nalo Hopkinson | Fire & Ink! | Blanton Museum of Art | Austin, TX
2009 | Full Spectrum: Entrepreneurs | Danny Simmons Corridor Gallery | New York, NY
2007 | Black Comics | The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention | Temple University | Philadelphia, PA
2006 | Black Sci-Fi Soul | Imagenation Film and Music Festival | The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture | New York, NY
2006 | Black Vampirism | The Invisible Universe Speculative Fiction Conference | The City College of New York | New York, NY
2006 | Black Sci-Fi Comics | Big Apple Comic Con | Penn Plaza Pavilion | New York, NY
2005 | Black Sci-Fi | Black Writers Conference | Temple University | Philadelphia, PA
2005 | Black Sci-Fi | The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention | Temple University | Philadelphia, PA
2004 | Black to the Future | Black to the Future: A Black Science Fiction Festival | Seattle Center | Seattle, WA

Publications

2019 | An Afrofuturist Time Capsule – Introduction | We Travel the Spaceways
2017 | The Wall | Obsidian-Speculating Futures: Black Imagination & the Arts 40th Anniversary Issue

Bibliography

2018 | A Sci-Fi Filmmaker Imagining the Future of Resistance | Colorlines.com
2018 | Meet the team that created a dystopian West Philadelphia film where Black folks rise up to fight police brutality | Philly.com
2017 | The Nature of Resistance | BlackStar Film Festival catalogue
2017 | Exploring the Unseen: Interview with M. Asli Dukan | ShadowandAct.com
2016 | Science Fiction Isn’t Just For White Nerds, It’s For Black Nerds Too | Vice.com
2016 | There Is a Precedent for the “DuVernay Test” to Consider… | IndieWire.com