Ashanti Africana is a multimedia artist, creative director, and experimental storyteller working at the intersection of visual art, technology, and cultural memory. Her practice moves fluidly across projection mapping, digital collage, installation, and time-based media, transforming physical spaces into living, responsive environments. Through light, motion, and layered materials, she constructs immersive experiences that invite audiences to not just observe, but enterthe narrative.
Rooted in experimentation, Ashanti’s work explores identity, perception, and futurism through a lens that is both intimate and expansive. She treats light as both medium and language, using it to reimagine architecture, reframe memory, and create portals that blur the line between the physical and the digital. Her approach is deeply intuitive yet system-driven, merging emotional storytelling with technical precision.
She began her studies in Fine Arts with a concentration in time-based media at Eastern Michigan University, later graduating with honors from University of Michigan–Flint with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, focusing on digital communications and data interpretation. This hybrid foundation allows her to move seamlessly between creative direction, visual design, and interactive systems, building work that is both conceptually rich and structurally intentional.
Her work and perspective have been recognized by platforms such as Teen Vogue, Current Magazine, and Primatives.xyz, where her contributions reflect a commitment to shaping contemporary Black visual culture through innovation and storytelling.
At the core of her practice is a belief that art is a living system, one that evolves through interaction, environment, and community. Whether through projection-based installations, experimental visuals, or collaborative experiences, Ashanti creates work that feels like a shift in atmosphere, a reorientation of space, and a glimpse into what’s possible.
Naaz Lab (N-AH-Z) is Ashanti’s Detroit-based experimental creative lab, a space where art, strategy, and technology converge to build immersive worlds and forward-thinking brands. Functioning as both a studio and a systems engine, Naaz Lab develops experiences that extend beyond traditional design, transforming concepts into environments, identities into motion, and ideas into multi-sensory narratives.
Through Naaz Lab, Ashanti leads projects that span projection mapping, creative direction, branding, and digital marketing, offering clients a full-spectrum approach to storytelling and engagement. Each project is treated as an ecosystem, where visuals, sound, space, and interaction work together to create impact that is both felt and remembered.
The lab is grounded in experimentation and driven by curiosity, often blending emerging technologies with tactile, real-world elements to produce work that feels alive. Whether activating public spaces, developing brand identities, or designing immersive installations, Naaz Lab exists to push boundaries, expand perception, and build experiences that live beyond the moment.