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
This project centered workshop engages participants in experimental and guerrilla filmmaking to develop their own cinematic language.
Selected Writing
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Black Cinematic Vernacular Screening Series
Kinfolk Collective utilizes ethnomusicology, critical theory, and traditional African cosmologies to inform the structure and visual language of our cinema. The program includes a collection of 6 short films, music performances and a panel/group lecture discussing Black Cinematic Vernacular.
CV
Professional, educational, and artist history
SELECTED SCREENINGS, AWARDS, HIGHLIGHTS
2016 Black Star Film Festival
2015 Collected Voices Chicago Ethnographic Film Festival
AMFM The Jazz Series Remixed
Ferguson is the Future: Speculative Arts & Social Justice Conference
2015 Black World Cinema New Short Film Works
2015 AFROPUNK/Black Radical Imagination
2015 New Orleans Film Festival
2015 Beverly Arts Center Student Film Festival
2013 Albert P. Weismann Award
2013 Rosebud Award
Published in Maple Leaf Rag IV
Published in 2009 New Voices Literary Journal
2009 Truman Capote Literary Trust Award
2008 Scripps Howard Grant