The first thing you notice in “Future People,” Derrick Adams’s solo show at the Stony Island Arts Bank, is a wide, two-tier gray platform that sits in the middle of the gallery; it looks like a stage. On top of it are four black bucket seats (outfitted with seat belts) and a table covered by a polished silver globe, turntables, a mixer, and a MacBook. The setup strongly resembles the bridge of the starship Enterprise—that is, if Captains Kirk or Picard were also DJs. The platform gives you a view of the other components of the exhibit: a collection of ten collages, plus a looping video projection of animated objects that appear to be floating through an expansive, endless galaxy. The video also features scrolling text of quotations from black visionaries such as Desmond Tutu and Mae Jemison.
As a result, Adams isn’t interested in depicting black oppression and struggle. Rather, he uses artifacts that highlight how black people have maintained the power to invent and innovate even under extraordinarily difficult and painful circumstances, ones they continue to face in the present day. “Imagination,” Adams declared, “is radical.”
Through 9/18: Fri-Sun noon-10 PM Stony Island Arts Bank 6760 S. Stony Island 312-857-5561rebuild-foundation.org Free
