A discussion with futurist and cultural strategist Ingrid LaFleur
Thursday, October 16
Doors open at 1pm
Lecture from 1:30–3:00pm
ASU Helmick Center, Room 101
Part of ASU’s celebration of Black Speculative Fiction Month.
Presented by the Center for Science and the Imagination, Humanities Institute, and FuturesWorks
Through the visionary lens of Octavia E. Butler’s writings, Ingrid LaFleur explores how we can
design a personal futures practice that not only strengthens our own resilience but also empowers
the communities we are rooted in. Butler’s speculative worlds provide frameworks for grappling
with uncertainty, navigating change, and reimagining what justice and collective thriving can look like.
Drawing on Afrofuture principles, LaFleur will guide participants in understanding how ritual, ethical
foresight, and imagination can become tools for conjuring new possibilities. Her lecture invites us
to embody Butler’s prophetic call to “shape change” and to cultivate futures practices that honor both
our personal agency and our shared responsibility to create just, liberated futures for everyone.
Ingrid LaFleur is an academically trained futurist with over twenty years
of curatorial experience. She combines futures research with visual
language, focusing on the intersection of emerging science, technology
and race, including artificial intelligence and blockchain. Her work
emphasizes the necessity of decolonizing the imagination and under-
standing how societal change impacts vulnerable communities of color.
As a cultural strategist, futures researcher, Afrofuture theorist, and
pleasure activist, LaFleur is dedicated to fostering equitable and just
futures. She founded The Afrofuture Strategies Institute (TASI),
where she merges foresight methodologies with the cultural movement
of Afrofuturism to cultivate futures thinking and inspire transformative
action. A recognized thought leader, LaFleur has delivered talks and work-
shops at prestigious venues such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris), TEDx
Brooklyn, Harvard and Oxford. Her groundbreaking work has been featured
inmajor media outlets, including The New York Times and Time magazine.
LaFleur holds a Master’s degree in Foresight from the University of Houston.