Presented by futurist and cultural strategist Ingrid LaFleur
Through the visionary lens of Octavia E. Butler’s writings, 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, imagination, and ethical foresight can become tools for conjuring new possibilities. This 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.
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 workshops at prestigious venues such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris), TEDx Brooklyn, Harvard University, and Oxford University. Her groundbreaking work has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and Time magazine. LaFleur holds a Master of Science in Foresight from the University of Houston.