M. Asli Dukan

M. Asli Dukan (born 1973) is an American independent media producer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Philadelphia working with themes of speculative fiction and Afrofuturism.[1][2][3][4]

M. Asli Dukan
Dukan in April 2019
Born1973 (age 47–48)
Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
OccupationFilmmaker, visual artist
Years active1999–present
Known forGenre of speculative fiction/afrofuturism

Early life

M. Asli Dukan was born in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Harlem, New York.[5] Dukan credits her family and childhood for influencing her focus on black consciousness and science fiction.[3][6]

Education

M. Asli Dukan has a Media and Communication Arts MFA from the City University of New York (CUNY) awarded in 1999 and a film production BA from New Jersey City University in 1997. Filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira was one of her professors.

Career

Dukan is a lecturer[7] at the University of Pennsylvania.[8] She has also taught at the University of the Arts and the City College of New York.

Dukan says she "embraces the futuristic, fantastic and imaginary genres of speculative fiction (SF) as a way to explore the possibilities of social transformation in society."[1][9] She has written, produced and directed several short SF films that have screened in film festivals across the country, the Newark International Film Festival, the ImageNation Film and Music Festival, the Langston Hughes Film Festival and the Blackstar Film Festival.[8][10][11][12] She has contributed to a scholarly edited volume about Afrofuturism and its trends in multiple media.[4] She founded Mizan Media Productions, a multimedia company that centers Afro-diasporic fiction and non-fiction narratives, in 2000.[13] Through her production company she has directed and produced short speculative fiction films, as well as videos for indie artists and arts organizations.[13]

The “Resistance Time Portal,” her mixed-media, augmented-reality installation centered on Black radicalism in a futuristic narrative, made its debut in the Distance≠Time exhibition[14][15] at the Icebox Project Space, a contemporary arts and culture venue in Philadelphia.[16][7]

In 2018 Dukan was a judge for the Glyph Comic Awards.[17]

Filmography
  • Sleeping on a train in Motion (Short) (1999)
  • Orishas (Short) (2001)
  • Boot (Music video) (2006)
  • Do You Mind (Music video) (2008)
  • 73 (Short) (2008)
  • M.O.M.M (Short) (2011)
  • Resistance: the Battle of Philadelphia (Prologue) (Short) (2017)[5]
  • Resistance: the Battle of Philadelphia (Web series) (2018)[10]
  • Memories from the Future (Short) (2019)
  • Invisible Universe (Expected) (2020)[3][18]

Awards and honors
  • Urban Artist Initiative Grant, 2009
  • Kitchen Table Giving Circle Grant, 2012
  • Leeway Foundation – Art and Change Grant, 2014
  • The City University of New York Fellowship, 2014
  • Leeway Foundation – Art and Change Grant, 2016
  • Black Public Media, NBPC 360 Fellow, 2016, Mentor: Arthur Jafa[19]
  • Leeway Foundation – Transformation Award, 2016
  • Scribe/Philadelphia Independent Media Finishing Fund, 2018
  • The Flaherty Seminar – Philadelphia Foundation Fellow, 2018

References
  1. Whitson, Roger (2016-12-01). Steampunk and Nineteenth-Century Digital Humanities: Literary Retrofuturisms, Media Archaeologies, Alternate Histories. Routledge. ISBN 9781317509103.
  2. Bacchilega, Cristina (2013-11-01). Fairy Tales Transformed?: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814339282.
  3. Olafare, Charles (2016-05-05). "Science Fiction Isn't Just For White Nerds, It's For Black Nerds Too". Vice. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  4. Dukan, M. Asli; Wildseeds, Kara (2019). Gunkel, Henriette; Lynch (eds.). "An Afrofuturist time capsule: one point in space-time in the collective consciousness of black speculation" in We Travel the Space Ways: Black Imaginations, Fragments, and Diffractions. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript. ISBN 9783837646016.
  5. Derakhshani, Tirdad. "BlackStar Film Festival celebrates filmmakers of color". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  6. Rao, Sameer (2018-09-07). "'Breaking' Presents: M. Asli Dukan, a Sci-Fi Filmmaker Imagining the Future of Resistance". Colorlines. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  7. "Undergraduate Fine Arts | PennDesign". University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  8. Reyes, Juliana Feliciano. "Meet the team that created a dystopian West Philadelphia film where black folks rise up to fight police brutality". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  9. "M. Asli Dukan". Leeway Foundation. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  10. Times, Birmingham (2017-08-10). "BlackStar Film Festival highlights cinema of resistance". The Birmingham Times. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  11. Kinney, Jen. "Things to Do: Blackstar Film Festival, in its seventh year, keeps expanding the mainstream". WHYY. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  12. Obenson, Tambay A.; Obenson, Tambay A. (2015-10-12). "From Book to Film: Now Is a Good Time to Adapt Dr. Ronald Mallet's 'The Time Traveler'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  13. Eregbu, Alexandria (2016). "BLACK OBJECT / WHITE SMOKE". Obsidian. 42: 255, 271 – via Literature Online.
  14. "Distance ≠ Time". Icebox Project Space. 2017-09-06. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  15. "Distance ≠ Time". Facebook. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  16. "CRANE ARTS – A Community of Art & Culture in Philadelphia – Contemporary Arts and Culture Venue in Philadelphia". Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  17. "2018 GLYPH AWARDS Nominees". Newsarama. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  18. TheGrio (2013-06-29). "And still sci-fi's Octavia E. Butler rises: A graphic adaptation. A literary society. Is a 'Kindred' movie next?". theGrio. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  19. Sefton, Dru; Editor, Senior. "A guide to organizations bringing diversity to public media". Current. Retrieved 2019-04-08.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
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