Buffalo Arts Studio is pleased to announce our programming for M&T Fourth Friday in August with the Second Annual Panthfrica Celebration. This celebration includes both visual and performing arts and will take place on August 23, 2019 from 5:00-8:00 pm.

Panthfrica is a collective of black creatives that transform and empower communities through the arts and entrepreneurship by partnering with community arts organizations to present special events that reflects the Afro-futurist view of a powerful, heroic future for people of color while also sharing music and spoken word rooted in African traditions.

The Second Annual Panthfrica Celebration coincides with "Black Imaginings", a solo exhibition by Stacey Robinson (Urbana-Champaign, Ill) whose work discusses ideas of “Black Utopias” and Afrofuturism as decolonized spaces of peace. Also on display is "Night Boy" by Black Kirby, a collaboration between Robinson and John Jennings (Riverside, CA) based on their most recent project "Night Boy", a graphic novel that tells the story of a young victim of police brutality who becomes a pawn in a supernatural power struggle, and a guardian of the City of Light.

In the Community Space Gallery "A Leap of Faith into a Galactic Adventure Story" will showcase artwork by Buffalo students who participated in a week-long workshop with Stacey Robinson. Students developed graphic novel sequences based on Night Boy to create original artwork inspired by Black Kirby's bold forms, combining themes centered around Afrofuturism, social justice, representation, and magical realism.