Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, 10028, New York City

July 1, 2026 – December 31, 2027

*Before Yesterday We Could Fly* is an installation inspired by Seneca Village, a 19th-century Black community that once stood near today’s Central Park, just west of The Met. Seneca Village had homes, churches, cemeteries, a school, and gardens, but was destroyed in 1857 when the city seized the land to build the park. The installation reimagines what might have been, using Afrofuturism to explore Black memory, possibility, and the connection between past, present, and future. Like a period room, it creates a domestic space, but unlike traditional historical reconstructions, it is intentionally speculative. Through sound, vision, storytelling, and objects ranging from historic to contemporary, it centers African diasporic creativity and resilience. The title comes from Virginia Hamilton’s retellings of the Flying African tale, which celebrates imagination, spirituality, and the desire for freedom. Created with lead curator Hannah Beachler and consulting curator Michelle Commander, the project also includes new commissions and acquisitions, opening up space for new histories and futures to be imagined.