Radio Imagination: A Celebration of Octavia Butler
“I have the kind of imagination that hears. I think of it as radio imagination.”–Octavia E. Butler
The Los Angeles-based arts nonprofit Clockshop announces the launch of Radio Imagination, a citywide collaboration of artistic and public programs that celebrate the life and work of Pasadena science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006). Organized by Clockshop, Radio Imagination is a yearlong series of performances, film screenings, and literary events.
At the center of the program are 10 commissions by 12 contemporary artists and writers that explore the Octavia E. Butler Papers at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Clockshop Director Julia Meltzer said, “Recognition of Butler’s influence across artistic disciplines, and her contribution to the Los Angeles cultural landscape is long overdue. Our hope is that Radio Imagination will bridge Butler’s groundbreaking fiction with contemporary conversations about the future of Los Angeles.” The series will span 2016, the tenth anniversary of the writer’s death.
Octavia E. Butler broke ground as an African American woman writing science fiction—a genre dominated by white men. With black female protagonists, radical notions of kinship and family, and a keen understanding of power dynamics, Butler’s writing revamped the conventions of the science fiction genre. Ultimately, her work suggested new ways of thinking and new models of working for a generation of writers and artists to come.
For more information, please visit Clockshop.org.
