Despite being an admitted hermit, sci-fi literary legend Octavia E. Butler has been the cornerstone ofcommunities long past her death. Her childhood creative influences are the focus of an exhibit, Octavia E. Butler: Seeding Futures, at the New Children’s Museum which drew people together even before it opened to the public in March.

“This project has been such a community builder in a way that has been really beautiful and I think true to the legacy of Octavia,” said Gabrielle Wyrick, chief curator for the museum.

Local youth, field experts and artists advised museum staff on the room-sized installation that was first conceived of in 2019. The disparate groups collaborating on the program came together over a shared love of Butler’s work, which featured themes of reimagining what an inclusive community can look like. Butler was the first African American woman to receive renown in the science fiction genre, for such books as “Kindred,” the Lilith’s Blood trilogy and “Wild Seed.”

“[Butler] did not see a space for herself in the creative landscape and she very cognizantly and consciously made the decision to write herself in,” Wyrick said. “I think that’s also a really important facet of this exhibition if we can inspire that in young people today.”

Several contemporary artists are attached to the project, with more to come as the museum has two years of programming planned to accompany the room-sized installation. Collaborating artist Mithsuca Berry designed murals surrounding the interactive exhibit. Three artists, designated as Earth(S)eed fellows, are creating workshop series for families and multi-generational audiences: Los Angeles-based poet Dr. Cecilia Caballero, ceramicist Ellamaria Foley-Ray of Denver, and former San Diegan Denali Jöel, a multi-disciplinary artist and fashion griot. Upcoming installations exploring science fiction are expected from New Mexico-based artist Cannupa Hanska Luger  and New York-based artist Saya Woolfalk.

Academic advisors, most especially Dr. Ayana Jamieson, also oversaw the exhibit’s creation. Jamieson, founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, said “Butler is a compelling, imaginative young person urging you to ‘write yourself in’ to the future with no closed doors. To Butler, science fiction was a space for imagination ‘to look at, examine, and play with absolutely anything’ and the New Children’s Museum is the perfect place for doing this!”

Berry, a Haitian globetrotting artist who currently lives in Boston, was on site during the seed-to-tree workshop in August 2023 in which 25 youth from the greater San Diego area spent a weekend exploringButler’s legacy. Berry interviewed the participants about growing up as People of Color in Southern California and visited Butler’s archives at Huntington Library several times before creating the installation’s murals. They, along with museum staff and other advisors, walked in Butler’s footsteps through Pasadena.

The room has fabricated oak trees, a model bus with windows facing the San Gabriel mountains, and shelves modeled after the Pasadena Public Library – all things Butler credited with informing her understanding of the world and people. The library shelves will be stocked with books written by people influenced by Butler.

“A lot of libraries are under attack right now and literature is under attack in many ways. I think that it’s really important and powerful that we create a space that preserves those things and celebrates those things and… encourages parents to also see value in those things,” Berry said. “Because without those spaces, we wouldn’t have gotten Octavia.”

Butler knew from a young age she wished to be a writer. In her author’s bio, she wrote, “I am a 47-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer.” As a child, Butler had a recurring horse character named Silver Star. Not a horse she wanted to ride, but a horse she wanted to be. Children have an area to draw their own alter egos and other writing activities in the exhibit. Nurturing childhood creativity is part of the exhibit.

“Truly if she was a child today, so many children would resonate with her and just feel so connected to her and she would have seen herself in so many places because in a great sense, we’ve been able to encourage young people to be more authentic,” Berry said. They noted Butler often felt disconnected from others and that she did not have a sense of belonging— something children today can relate to amid a mental health and loneliness crisis.

While Butler’s archives have been on display elsewhere in small exhibits, this is the first time her work is being presented to children. “I feel very strongly that Octavia Butler is a core, important figure in Southern California literary history and national and international literary history. It’s just as important for young people in Southern California to know who she is,” Wyrick affirmed.

Butler’s book are aimed for late adolescent or adult audiences due to the heavy topics she covers, including child abuse, sex trafficking, slavery and climate collapse. Her work will be examined in programming for middle and high school audiences but is not present in the mock library as it is not child appropriate.

“When it comes to young people coming into this space and experiencing her work, even if they don’t fully grasp it yet, I think the ability to make a third space for young people where they can think and nurture their own seeds of knowledge, is really important,” Berry said.

Butler’s main characters were often children struggling with hyper empathy who resided in dystopian civilizations and engaged in revolutionary thinking about the future.

“A lot of her characters… being like, ‘why doesn’t everybody see what I see?’ type stuff and I know there are a lot of children that are out there that feel that very way. So as long as we create a safe space for them —for them to chill, for them to gain information, for them to make friends — I think that that is the most powerful part of this exhibition,” Berry said.

The exhibit will be at the Children’s Museum for at least the next two years. Although in life Butler was often alone, in death, her work connects people as she always wanted.

Wyrick said she agrees with Jamieson: The greatest gift that Octavia has given her is the community that she builds and the community that’s built around her and her work and her ideas.

(Top photo courtesy New Children’s Museum)