M. Asli Dukan

Filmmaker | Visual Artist | Photographer

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  • FILMS
    • Memories from the Future (2019)
    • Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (2018)
    • Resistance: tbop – prologue (2017)
    • M.O.M.M. (2011)
    • 73 (2008)
    • Orishas (2001)
  • PROMO VIDEOS
  • ART PROJECTS
    • Ten Views, Reconsidered (2020)
    • TONI PLAYING DARK (2020)
    • Resistance Time Portal (2017)
    • Digital Video Collages
  • WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
    • Waladli (est. 2021)
    • The Maria Trilogy (2021+)
    • Invisible Universe (2022)
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ABOUT

Artist Bio

M. Asli Dukan is a filmmaker, artist and photographer 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 2018, she completed season one of Resistance: the battle of philadelphia, a web series about a community’s struggle against state surveillance and state violence. In 2019, her experimental 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 2020 Independence Public Media grant and a 2020 Sundance Institute Knight Alumni grant. She is in post-production on Invisible Universe, a feature 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 | Scribe Video Center | Philadelphia Independent Media Fund
  • 2020 | Sundance Institute Knight Alumni Grant
  • 2020 | Independence Public Media Foundation | Community Voices Grant
  • 2020 | United States Artists | 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 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

Selected 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

  • 2021 | Vox Populi | Make/Shift: It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This | Ten Views, Reconsidered (Digital Collage Prints) | Online
  • 2017 | Icebox Project Space | Distance≠Time (Time Camp 001) exhibition | Resistance Time Portal (Mixed-Media, AR installation) | Philadelphia, PA

Selected Presentations

  • 2020 | Video Art of M. Asli Dukan | Topics in the Modern Art: Automatism | Visiting Artist | Stony Brook University | Online
  • 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

Selected Panels

  • 2020 | Radical Imagining: Afro, Indigenous & Palestinian Futursims | DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival | Moderator | Online
  • 2020 | Escape Artist Mixtape Vol. 4: Parable of the Coronas | Panelist | Online
  • 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
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