Cinema of the Oppressed

In 2012, I along w/ Julian Walker founded Kinfolk Collective, a collection black artists and scholars researching the nexus between black cultural production and liberation politics. As an educator and filmmaker, I unpack this in my work by uncovering and uplifting divergent cinematic vernaculars produced from the lived experience of oppressed persons. I see visual albums (Lemonade, Black America Again), music videos, (Chief Keef to Missy), and meme culture (social media challenges to Vine appropriations) as cinematic forms pioneered by members of the African Diaspora and worthy of critical and creative reflection. Thinking about these things, I developed workshops, lectures and a traveling screening series interrogating competing notions of the 'cinematic'.

Cinema as Rhythm and Poetry Experimental Film Workshop