A Drexciya-inspired exhibition at The Smithsonian has been labelled “anti-American propaganda” in a wave of attacks against the museum institution by by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
From The Deep: In The Wake Of Drexciya, which concluded at Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of African Art in January 2025, is one of several exhibitions referenced in a new statement from the White House, entitled President Trump Is Right About The Smithsonian.
The exhibition, produced by photographer Ayana V. Jackson, explored the Afrofuturist concept at the heart of the work of Drexciya, the duo of James Stinson and Gerald Donald. The two artists’ work together was heavily themed around an imagined Afrofuturist utopia, which was “populated by descendants of pregnant African women thrown (or who jumped) overboard into the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Passage” amid the Atlantic slave trade.
Jackson’s exhibition was built around “animation, immersive video, installation, sound and scent”, but has drawn the ire of Trump’s administration, alongside several other cultural exhibitions showcased by The Smithsonian in recent years.
The White House’s statement also criticised The Smithsonian’s decision to fly a “transgender and intersex flag” at its associated buildings, and took issues with LGBTQIA+ inclusion in exhibitions on transgender athletes, skateboarding, and Latinos and Latinas with disabilities.
In 2022, Tresor launched a reissue series devoted to the works of Drexciya, as well as the late James Stinson.
