Private Project

Blackstar Sanctuary

"Blackstar Sanctuary" is a virtual reality experience that immerses users in a world grounded in queer African spiritual and cosmological traditions. Upon donning a VR headset, users are transported to ancient Egypt, where they are welcomed by the Rainbow Serpent, a mythical figure who serves as a guide. Following the Serpent’s path, users explore a vast temple complex adorned with towering sculptures of 16 queer African deities, each embodying a unique facet of divinity, and visit the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, the earliest recorded same-sex couple in human history, dating back to 2500 BCE. As users navigate the temple’s sacred spaces, they undergo a ritual of transformation and rebirth, watched over by deities and ancestors. Blending virtual reality with queer history and spirituality, “Blackstar Sanctuary” reclaims and reanimates a long-suppressed lineage of queer African divinity and offers a powerful challenge to heteronormative interpretations of the past.

  • Marques Redd
    Director
    Obi Mbu (The Primordial House)
  • Mikael Owunna
    Director
    Obi Mbu (The Primordial House)
  • Devin Smith
    3D Artist
  • Cristii
    Sound Design
  • Jabez Walsh
    Sound Design
  • Project Type:
    Virtual Reality, 360 Video
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 35 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 10, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    30,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Marques Redd, Mikael Owunna

Marques Redd:
Marques Redd is a traditional African cosmologist, filmmaker, 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. 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 directed the experimental dance film “Obi Mbu (The Primordial House)” (2021) with Mikael Owunna, which presents an Igbo cosmological narrative about the creation of the world by the deities Chukwu and Eke-Nnechukwu. The film has toured to over 20 venues across the United States, including MIT Media Lab, North Carolina Museum of Art, and Stanford University. In 2024, “Obi Mbu” began an international run which will tour the film as a museum installation in Sweden, Estonia, China, Germany, Norway, and the UK over the next 3 years. Other major works include “The Four World Ages” (2023), a spatial augmented reality performance about the history of humanity in Igbo mythology, which he is currently adapting into a feature film; “Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers” (2024), a series of 16 glass sculptures of Black queer Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) deities which served as the basis for the 3D models in the “Blackstar Sanctuary” virtual reality film; and “Opening the Mouth” (2024), a site-specific dance performance ritually animating the Myth-Science statues that is the basis for another forthcoming short film.

Mikael Owunna:
Mikael Owunna is a Nigerian American filmmaker, multimedia artist, engineer, Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy Nominee, and Co-Founder of Rainbow Serpent, a Black LGBTQ art | tech | spirituality organization. Exploring the intersections of technology, art, and African cosmologies, his work seeks to elucidate an emancipatory vision of possibility that revives traditional African knowledge systems and pushes people beyond all boundaries, restrictions, and frontiers. Owunna’s work has been exhibited across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America and has been collected and showcased by institutions such as Tate Modern; Fotografiska Stockholm; Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History & Culture; Art Dubai; Digital Art Fair Asia; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. His work has also been featured in media ranging from the New York Times to CNN, NPR, VICE, and The Guardian. He has lectured at venues including Harvard Law School, World Press Photo (Netherlands), and TEDx. Owunna has published two monographs: “Limitless Africans” (FotoEvidence, 2019) and “Cosmologies” (ClampArt, 2021), and his work has been commissioned for major public art installations by organizations including the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Foundation, Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, Pittsburgh International Airport, and Orange Barrel Media.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Since 2020, over 500 anti-LGBT bills have been proposed in U.S. legislatures and African nations including Uganda and Ghana. Sparked by our ongoing research into queer African deities and history, we sought to create a virtual reality world that immerses viewers in little-known queer African spiritual traditions. We began development of “Blackstar Sanctuary” in 2021 by creating 16 glass sculptures of queer African deities. For example, one of the deities featured is Hapi, a figure who represented the fertility of the Nile River and was depicted as a man with large breasts and a pregnant stomach. Found in images dating as early as 1800 BCE, Hapi is the earliest representation of an androgynous/trans god in human history. After completing each sculpture, we created 3D models of them with photogrammetry and imported them into a virtual ancient Egyptian temple custom-built in Unreal Engine 5. We created and animated a Rainbow Serpent as the viewers’ cosmic guide through the temple, and filmed this journey with 360 degree virtual cameras. Our largest hope is that “Blackstar Sanctuary” will showcase the power of virtual reality storytelling to revive endangered precolonial knowledge systems and create culturally affirming spaces for Black queer people.