Biography
Marques Redd is a traditional African cosmologist, independent scholar, multimedia artist, and Co-Founder of Rainbow Serpent, a Black LGBTQ art | tech | spirituality organization. The foundation of his work is the reclamation, modernization, and extension of indigenous African knowledge systems, particularly from ancient Egyptian and West African (Yoruba, Dogon, Dagara, and Igbo) contexts, and he seeks every medium he can – film, sculpture, academic scholarship, music, spiritual retreats, performance, and public installation – to bring the multidimensional depths of African cosmologies to the 21st century world.
Redd graduated from Harvard University with an AB in African and Afro-American Studies and Social Studies and from the University of California, Berkeley with a PhD in English Literature. He has written essays on a wide variety of topics, including the poetry of jazz musician Sun Ra, the literature of Ishmael Reed, the art of the Women of Visions collective, the photography of Mikael Owunna, and global 19th-century poetry. His forthcoming book, entitled Rainbow Serpent Cosmology, provides a glimpse into the world’s first Black queer spiritual system.
He directed the dance film and photography series Obi Mbu (The Primordial House) (2021), which presents an Igbo cosmological narrative about the creation of the world by the deities Chukwu and Eke-Nnechukwu. This project was followed by The Four World Ages (2023), a live multimedia performance, spatial augmented reality performance, photography series, and public art installation exploring the unfolding of human history through the Ages of Divine Unity, Separation, Civilization, and Chaos. He has also released Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers (2024), a series of 16 glass sculptures of Black queer Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) deities; Blackstar Sanctuary (2024), an immersive VR film that explores an expansive temple complex dedicated to those deities; Opening the Mouth (2024), a site-specific dance performance ritually animating the Myth-Science statues; and Knowing the Evolutions of Ra (2024), a Kemetic creation text set to music.
With the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he launched a public art collaboration entitled Playing the Cosmic Strings (2021) that features his image on a 1,200 sq. ft. billboard and draws on Igbo conceptualizations about the origin of music. He was commissioned by Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) to create the architectural light installation The Three Sisters (2024), which was displayed on Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol, Rachel Carson, and Roberto Clemente Bridges. He regularly offers spiritual retreats at The Esalen Institute, including Harnessing the Power of Creation through African Ritual and Altered States: African Ritual and Sacred Art. As an art curator, Redd has organized exhibitions in many cities around the country, including Atlanta, Macon, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Tampa, and Miami.
Image by Ajamu X