I am a Baltimore-based conceptual and social practice artist, researcher, digital storyteller, arts educator and afrofuturist. In my multidisciplinary art practice, I focus on material culture and social phenomena involving Black Muslims in the United States, and the role of Mundane Afrofuturism in Black folks’ daily lives through which I explore the nuances of duality existing within Black and Muslim people. I am particularly interested in how Afrofuturism can act as counter-memory and how the intricacies of language have affected Black people in the U.S. over time.

For my work as a co-producer of my awards-nominated podcast OBSIDIAN, I am the recipient of a Red Bull Arts Microgrant and Rubys Artist Grant by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. I've collaborated with the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Morgan State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and the City, Black Islam Syllabus, Sweaty Eyeballs Animation, and in 2020 completed a curatorial internship at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.


I have been featured in The Washington Post, NBC News, BmoreArt, and have exhibited artworks at New Media Caucus 2019 Border Control: Symposium & Exhibition (Ann Arbor, MI), Parkway Theater (Baltimore, MD), The Peale Center (Baltimore, MD), and the University of Maryland (College Park, MD). I currently serve as the Assistant Manager of Teen Programs at the Walters Art Museum and as a Trustee of the Awesome Foundation, Baltimore. I hold a Master of Fine Arts in Intermedia and Digital Art from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Media and Film from Towson University.


Reach me at safiyahcheatam@gmail.com

Selected CV