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   I am a multimedia artist, researcher, and educator of Afrofuturism and Black Islam in the U.S. based in Baltimore, MD.

Read more about me here.

Recent:
Islam & Prints What Happens When We Nurture exhibition named “Best of” in the Baltimore Beat’s end-of-year publication.

Baltimore Beat’s review of Islam & Print’s What Happens When We Nurture exhibition.

UMBC Magazine’s alumni profile, “The Mundane Afrofuturism of multimedia artist Safiyah Cheatam”

  1. Assistant Manager of Teen Programs at the Walters Art Museum
  2. Co-founder of Islam & Print
  3. Trustee at the Awesome Foundation


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I wish I was unhappy (2021)





2021

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Cut-out fabric, black cotton, white chiffon
12' x 10'



Exhibition History:

2021, Home Bodies | UMBC IMDA Thesis Exhibition, Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC), Baltimore, MD

This artwork represents the concept of the Veil as referenced in W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk as a means of yearning for what is withheld on the other side. Cited in the fictional chapter "Of the Coming of John," the titular I wish I was unhappy encapsulates a southern Black American girl’s longing for knowledge and understanding of how systemic oppression affects her life, at the cost of her own happiness. She sees the burden of knowledge held by her brother John who’s had the male privledge and freedom of studying up North. The peepholes through letters in the large cloth barrier represent that which is withheld from those who desire but are unable to fully experience the other side.



Read more about Du Bois’ use of the veil in my written thesis, From Counter-Memory To Counter-Culture: Black Islam in the U.S. Through a Mundane Afrofuturist Lens.

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