Beyonce Armstrong, or A Buba Creation, 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, her work combines uncanny dreamscapes with lived Black experiences, drawing parallels between robots, toys, and puppets akin to the lack of self-autonomy often experienced in lower economic communities. Through sculpture, performance, and presentation, Buba makes visual arts and nontraditional storytelling accessible to new audiences.

Currently developing her project The Hood Babies' Tapes: Volume 2, with the support of Puppet Showplace’s Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers, Beyonce recently shared a few of her thoughts about the program:

Beyonce Armstrong with her *Hood Babies* puppets

Puppet Showplace: Can you describe your project in a few sentences? (type of puppetry, materials you are working with, topic, etc)

Beyonce Armstrong: I'm working on Hood Babies, a series of 30-inch cable-controlled mechanical puppets. I build everything by hand using wood, clay, fabric, found materials, and a lot of metal hardware for the mechanical parts. Their visual design draws parallels between robots, toys, and puppets and the lack of self-autonomy often experienced in lower economic communities. The puppets are activated through spoken word pieces and musical dialogue.

Beyonce Armstrong with one of her puppets on a subway platform

Puppet Showplace: What inspired (or is inspiring) the work you are creating during your Creative Residency?

Beyonce Armstrong: My project centers on themes of programming, poverty, technology, and social norms all within the context of Black culture. The work takes conceptual inspiration from media like The PJs, They Cloned Tyrone, and Do The Right Thing. While following the visual imagery of dreamlike urban aesthetics, this project follows expressions of Hood Surrealism similar to 90s and early 2000s music videos from artists like Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes, and Ludacris.

Beyonce Armstrong on stage at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space

Puppet Showplace: What have you found most rewarding or beneficial about your experience so far with the Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers?

Beyonce Armstrong: Being in community with other Black puppeteers who understand that this work is political and cultural, not just craft or entertainment. The residency validated that puppetry can be a serious tool for examining power and telling stories that matter to our communities. I've also learned so much technically from other residents about different manipulation styles and how to think about character and movement in ways I hadn't considered before. The most rewarding part has been feeling less isolated. Being part of CRBP reminded me that there's a whole lineage of Black artists using puppetry to say something urgent about the world we're living in.

Puppet Showplace is proud to support boundary-pushing artists like Beyonce. Follow Beyonce on her Instagram and the Hood Babies website, and subscribe to Puppet Showplace’s newsletter to be notified about performances by Creative Residency fellows!

And, don’t forget to join us on Saturday, June 13, 2026 for Amplify: The Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers Showcase! Celebrate bold new voices in puppetry! Discover innovative works at a one-night-only finale to the 6th edition of the Creative Residency for Black Puppeteers, featuring “puppet slam”-style performances — at Boston University’s lovely Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre!