Ayana V. Jackson’s Drexciya-inspired exhibition opens in Washington D.C.

From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya runs until April 2024.

An exhibition inspired by the work of techno duo Drexciya has opened in Washington D.C.

Read more: Why Drexciya’s debut Neptune’s Lair is still one of the most important techno records ever made

From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya sees New Jersey contemporary artist Ayana V. Jackson draw on Drexciya’s pre-Afrofutrist mythos of an underwater kingdom for the children of pregnant women who had whose lives ended in the ocean during the transatlantic slave trade.

Senior curator Karen E. Milbourne describes the exhibition as bringing “to life an immersive, feminist, and sacred aquatopia where African water spirits from Senegal to South Africa both midwife and protect the Drexciyans”. Through her own body, Jackson “engages in what it might have meant to be among the estimated two million captives who never made it to shore”.

The exhibition runs at Washington’s Smithsonian National Museum of African Art until April 30 2024. Find out more here.