COMPANY
INTRODUCTION
Owner story
A Buba Creation is the studio wonderland of Beyonce “Buba” Armstrong’s productions. Buba is a multimedia artist who fuses pop culture and fine art, using puppetry and set design to explore Black consciousness and community progression. Coined Hood-Surrealism, she combines uncanny dreamscapes with lived Black experiences, centering found materials and lower-class concepts to reflect how social culture programs our realities. Growing up in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, her decision to center the intersectional experience of low income Black Americans addresses the many causes of spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional imbalances.
Buba’s practice documents communal values over time through themes of mental health, social discourse, and cultural transformation. Through sculpture, performance, and presentation, she makes visual arts and nontraditional storytelling accessible to new audiences by reevaluating the ordinary to reveal everyday beauty and possibilities for change. Her work serves as a cultural bookmark—awakening present communities and informing future generations about the ongoing work of unlearning, reprogramming, and transformation toward liberation.
Origins
The natural progression of one’s mind from adolescence to adulthood was exaggerated during Buba’s time in college. In 2018, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design on a full scholarship where she immediately became aware of the cultural differences between living in a predominately black community and staying at a PWI. Themes of mental health, identity, and consciousness were topics that were tackled during her years away from home.
Simultaneous events such as the Coronavirus lockdown and the Black Lives Matter movement forced Buba to enter a new stage of enlightenment as it relates to her understanding of blackness and progression. The forced isolation drove many people into a spiritual journey as they had to deal with internal affairs such as healing one’s inner child, reevaluating taught mindsets, and forming a better understanding of self. Matters of afro-futurism were approached through a regressive lens to signify the parallels of past and future normalcy. One’s childhood upbringing, specifically within the Black American experience, presented as a great area to tackle.
Thus HOOD BABIES were born.
MISSION STATEMENT
MESSAGE
HOOD BABIES are 30in. designer dolls that serve as symbols of black consciousness with values rooted in community and evolution. These realistic luxury robots feature manual engineering, detailed articulation and messages meant to encourage healing and transformation. It pushes the message that aspirations of freedom, gratitude, and health can be attainable through the proper reprogramming of one’s mind by unlearning generational patterns.
HOOD BABIES can provide a tangible representation of healing your inner child by celebrating individuals who strive to become the better version of themselves through being mindful about one’s physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. . Each of the 7 characters provide a unique storyline and specific traits that allow our target audiences to resonate with its definite representation. These art toys intend to curate a body of visibility and encouragement in order to have customers feel supported along their progression from mindless imitation to conscious decision making.
OUR AUDIENCE
HOOD BABIES represent people from low income communities with big dreams despite their seemingly small reality. The brand provides a safe community for all those who identify as “black sheep”. Those who choose to question the status quo and heal the cycle of complacency. People who embody evolution and prioritize healing one’s inner child through love and learning. Interests in healing childhood trauma, unlearning harmful practices, and celebrating all expressions of blackness have revealed an internal advocacy of liberation.
HOOD BABIES serve as beacons of black enlightenment in the age of The New Awakening. View these toys as symbols of appreciation to this generation of rule breakers and game shakers.
