The Museum of Black Futures is a traveling art and heritage station that works with performance, ritual, music, and podcasts to imagine new futures. And during the Museumnacht Amsterdam, The Museum of Black Futures took over The Bookshop at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. We center Afrofuturism, the imagination of Black Futures, and seek a state of zero colonial gravity. Together, we've turned the theatre into our own Radical Space Station.

During this evening filled with performance and conversation, we have transformed Theater aan de Rijn into our museum for the night. Our theme? Returning to the Sacred Mother. Together, we explored how we can reverse the Door of No Return — through exhibitions, artworks, and museum practices that help us imagine new futures. A form of reparations that goes beyond financial compensation, one in which we ourselves are in charge.

In the theatre performance Bling! Ngaba depicts the Cullinan’s journey home to South Africa. With a personification of the diamond, flickering images from the future and monologues from a court, she takes you from the early 19th century to today’s South Africa. She takes the audience into an alternative history and future. In the process, she seeks the answer to the question: by returning this diamond, can the UK heal all the scars of the past?

We live in a time of fake news, gaslighting and deception by government leaders and popular media, but we also wear masks in our daily lives. Why are we so afraid of the truth? And what happens when we create the conditions for honesty and openness? For Radical Space, author Clarice created a work in progress, called Salon Verité - Under the Dragon's Blood Tree. She turned ITA's Bookshop-stage into a space where truth and art meet.

In 1595, two teenage boys were taken from Madagascar by Dutch traders on their first expedition to Asia. The traders renamed them Lourens and Madagascar. These boys became the first known enslaved individuals trafficked by what would later become the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Journalist Leendert van der Valk unearthed their story in the archives. Writer Clarice Gargard transformed Leendert’s findings into a powerful new theatre text.

In june 2025, the book Volg het Spoor was published as a public-oriented edition of a research project on the involvement of Arnhem and the province of Gelderland in the Dutch slavery past. The book presents dozens of historical stories that link the city of Arnhem and its institutions, families, and streets to the Dutch colonial system and the transatlantic slave trade. I was asked to create the cover illustration for this publication.

From April 18 to August 31, 2025, Valkhof Museum presents the exhibition Bittere Oogst/Bitter Harvest. The exhibition reveals the hidden history of slavery and resistance through a unique diorama of a Surinamese coffee plantation from 1823, crafted by Gerrit Schouten. Artist Richard Kofi made the drawings for the poster of the exhibit. His project Draden van ons Nederlandse slavernijverleden is part of the exhibition's program.

In every province of the Netherlands, residents are working together on an impressive tapestry that depicts the regional history of the colonial slavery past. For Gelderland, artist and curator Richard Kofi designed a tapestry no less than 35 meters long, which expresses both history and hope for the future.

In 1971, the television program Soul presented a legendary conversation between poet Nikki Giovanni and writer James Baldwin. They represent two generations reflecting on the reality of Blackness in a violent world, as well as love, family and the ways their personal experiences influence their art. In this edition of Radical Space, choreographer Vainergill Thurnim, poet Rohan Ayinde and saxophonist Diana Dzhabbar artistically continue this famous dialogue.

In this evening programme, we explore James Baldwin's legacy through the lens of music and historical sound clips from across the diaspora with DJ Lynnee Denise. Lynnee explores how sound cultures act as living archives and intellectual meeting places for the Black queer diaspora. Her work delves deep into underground club movements and musical movements within the African diaspora, using the power of music and sound to tell stories of resistance and survival.

Through music and poetry, Munganyende, Ashley and Djuwa remind us of the friendship between James Baldwin, Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone.

Op de planken is a podcast by Internationaal Theater Amsterdam in which our host, Richard Kofi, talks to makers about theater, society, and how these two influence each other. In this episode, ITA programmer Richard Kofi talks to choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas, one of the most innovative and groundbreaking makers in contemporary dance. Her performance Bacchae – Prelude to a Purge opened Brandhaarden last weekend.

Together with six artists, Kofi delved into the idea of artists as mediums—how do they transform ideas from the spiritual into the artistic?

Phantom Wizard's A Day in a Life is a ritual of activation, a sonic invocation - ushering in The Bookshop as a site of transformation.

We can only enforce repatriation and reparation if we are the owners and make the community shareholders.

De tentoonstelling Pretu ‘Zwart in het Nederland van de 21e eeuw’ met context programma is te zien van zaterdag 29 juni tot zondag 15...

Junadry and I had the honor of participating in the residency program Water Holds Memory of the Terra Foundation in Giverny, France.

This program specifically focuses on a quest for liberation from the afterlives of the colonial past and afterlives of slavery. During that time, divide-and-conquer mechanisms were structurally applied to legitimize exploitation and dismantle opposition, protest and revolt. Although slavery has been abolished, our thinking, our bodies, and thus our daily lives are still influenced by colonial traces, memories and behaviours.

Mi Pret’i Wowo is an interdisciplinary rhythmic exploration of connection and healing.

We kicked off the Lieve Stad Festival, a collaboration between ITA and Meervaart. With the programming of Lieve Stad we try to shake up...

Shortly after the recording of our very first Museum of Black Futures event I was contacted by the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Something needs to change in Gelderland's cultural landscape. Disagreements about the maintenance and direction of the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal led to the closure of the institute. A group of Afro-Europeans has now decided to take matters into their own hands by initiating a new museum project.

Over the past few years, Leocaria and Kofi have undertaken several residencies and research trips, gathering stories about Black histories.

The term ‘existential security’ became central to recent political debates, initially appearing as a common good.