Kodex Noire SS26
Who We Are
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Kongo Square is a wandering studio. A Black cultural observatory.
A slow design diaspora temple moonlighting as a speculative laboratory.
“Jazz is God, it’s God speaking to me.
And my trying to speak back to god—that is jazz.”
Harlem jazz musician Sonny Rollins
We’ve designed an Afrofuturist framework that facilitates the hosting of local salons. Each of our Pilgrimage Liner Note sessions includes a Groove—Afrofluxus ritual prompts designed to be performed together live, slowly scaling to a decentralized Ilé of griots.
Griot Infrastructure
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Join us in developing Afrofluxus IP rooted in communal cultural heritage, inspired by the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Boatema Boateng, Bagele Chilisa, and Shawn Wilson.
We spin griot grooves that empower Black and Indigenous storytellers, founders, and cultural workers to map your own North Stars. Join and contribute to the creation of distributed archives, a cross-cultural salon network, and an esolang lingua franca that can travel across platforms—and beyond manmade borders.
“Founded in 2021 by human-computer interaction researcher Kayla Love, Kongo Square Studio is not easily slotted into industry norms. Operating as a decentralized, nomadic practice, the studio blends design research, ethical strategy, and ancestral technologies to support visionaries working at the intersection of culture, community, and liberation. Among its signature offerings is Kodex Noire, designed to serve nomads of colour, creatives in exile, and practitioners in the diaspora. Kongo Square isn’t just a design studio. It’s part speculative lab, part sanctuary, part compass.”
1A+ Dispatch, Brazil | Between Shores and Systems: Where the Coquí Sings
Cowrie Moon Cosmogram
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We broadcast according to the lunar calendar—with cyclical transmissions of jazz fables, unfiltered soundscapes, and Afrofuturist writing prompts to inspire your book clubs and writer’s circles. Each transmission is meant to travel counterclockwise like a ring shout.
From page to voice. From voice to salon.
From salon to song, and on and on.
A Dikenga stage.
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Learn more about the studio: kongosquare.net
For inquiries and collaborations: kongosquare@proton.me
Note for free subscribers: all audio files, jazz fables, and serial stories are reserved for Kodex Noire patrons.
