Marques Redd biography

Marques Redd is a traditional African cosmologist, independent scholar, and multimedia artist. He is immersed in a wide array of African spiritual systems, particularly from ancient Egyptian, Afro-Cuban, Yoruba, Dogon, Igbo, and Dagara cultural contexts. His published academic essays include “Astro-Black Mythology: The Poetry of Sun Ra” and “Those Mysteries, Our Mysteries: Ishmael Reed and the Construction of a Black Esoteric Tradition.” He has also contributed essays for arts institutions and galleries including Silver Eye Center for Photography and Women of Visions. In September 2021, he released Obi Mbu (The Primordial House): An Igbo Creation Myth, a film he co-directed with Mikael Owunna, and it has been screened at ClampArt (NYC), Iris Project (LA), and CAM Raleigh. In October 2021, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's public art installation “Playing the Cosmic Strings” launched, which features an image of him engaging in a creation ritual on a 1,200 sq. ft. billboard that will be displayed for 5 years. Other work in production includes a scholarly text entitled Ancient Origins, Future Destinies: Blackness, World Creativity, and the Word and a series of glass sculptures of queer African deities that will be exhibited at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2023.