D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem

D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem is a space sculptor whose award-winning teaching, art, and writing bridge disciplines of ritual, design, ecology, and Afrofuturity. Her fantastical, interactive environments and performances interrogate, titillate, decolonize, and empower, asking: "Who controls the future?" She is an Associate Professor, Adj. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Spring 2021 Associate Professor, Visiting Artist, at Kentucky College of Art and Design; and Founder of Denenge Design and In The Luscious Garden, focused on holistic and conceptual approaches to human-centered design.

Her work has been featured in or supported by ICA London’s Black Quantum Futurism: Temporal Deprogramming; Corpus Meum, Arts Club of Chicago; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin; ARTEXTE, Montreal; U.S. Library of Congress (NASA/Blumberg); Red Bull Arts NY; Schomburg Center; Art Gallery of Ontario; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Goethe Institut; Terrain Biennial; National Endowment for the Humanities; and Place Lab Fellow, Rebuild Foundation, University of Chicago Harris School. Select publications, contributions, and collections include: Peggy Cooper Cafritz Collection; AFRIFUTURI 02022020; essay on AFRICOBRA co-founder Jae Jarrell, Kavi Gupta Gallery, 58th Venice Biennale; Antennae: Journal of Art and Nature; Fleeting Monuments for the Black Arts Movement (U-Minn); Vegetal Entanglements (MIT).