Artist - Elie Akadia (AKEM)

Elie is often referred to by his initials AKEM. AKEM is from the Ivory Coast and currently studying in the United States completing a Bachelor’s in Sociology while building his passion for photography. AKEM stated photography as an art in 2014 but is very new to Afrofuturism, Afrofuturism was brought to his attention by an artist on Instagram called Rickii Ly who showed Elie the realm of afrofuturism. He believes it is important for Africans to paint images not only of the past and present but also the future. Creating Afrofuturistic art is our perception of the future, a sci-fi of our own, because Africans are not very present when it comes to depicting space. AKEM uses Afrofuturism to elevate African Women on a cosmos level, a realization of their cosmic greatness.