Stacey Robinson, originally from Albany, NY, is an assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois, is an Arthur Schomburg Fellow who completed his MFA at the University at Buffalo. His multimedia work discusses ideas of “Black utopias” as decolonized spaces of peace by considering Black affluent, self-sustaining communities, Black protest movements, and the art that document(ed) them. As part of the collaborative team, “Black Kirby,” with artist John Jennings, he creates graphic novels, gallery exhibitions, and lectures that deconstruct the work of comic book creator Jack Kirby to re-imagine resistance spaces inspired by Black diasporic cultures. 

His recent exhibition, Binary ConScience, explores ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois’s “double consciousness” as a Black cultural adaptation, and a means of colonial survival. Another of his exhibitions, Branding the AfroFuture, at Union College in Schenectady, NY, looked at consciously designing and constructing Black futures through various cultural and collage aesthetics. Through his emerging sound practice, Stacey creates the sonic experience of the Afrofuture through collaging house, hip-hop, and other music to create a harmonious soundscape that converses with the aesthetics of an art exhibition. Recent works appear in books: Kid Code: Channel Zero from Rosarium Publishing and Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners, from For Beginners Books. His latest graphic novel, I Am Alfonso Jones with writer Tony Medina is available from Lee & Low books.